Seed Saving Tips for 8 Easy Vegetables

These handy seed saving tips will help you take your gardening to a whole new level!

Gardening can be a blast, and saving seeds from your garden not only saves money, but allows you to keep growing your favorite varieties year after year. You can preserve rare heirloom vegetables, or come up with your own brand new varieties!

Seed Saving Tips

Tomatoes: to save seeds from tomatoes, you might want to bag blossoms to prevent cross pollination. Scrape seeds out of ripe fruits. Ferment seeds at room temperature for 2-3 days, then wash and dry.
Peppers: to save pepper seeds, cover blossoms before they open to prevent different varieties from crossing. Scrape seeds out of ripe fruit and dry well.
Cucumbers: to save cucumber seeds, use taping to hand pollinate fruits and avoid cross pollination. Leave cucumbers on the plant until they get big and turn pale yellow. Remove seeds from fruit and ferment for 2-3 days.
Summer Squash: to save seeds from summer squash, use taping to hand pollinate so they don’t cross with other varieties or with winter squash. Let the fruits grow huge and hard like a winter squash. Wash seeds and dry.
Winter Squash: to save winter squash seeds, tape blossoms to prevent crossing between varieties or with summer squash. When the squash is ripe, wash seeds and dry thoroughly.
Corn: to save corn seeds, start with at least 100 plants to avoid inbreeding depression. Isolate from other varieties by 1 mile, or use bagging to hand pollinate so your variety stays pure. Let corn mature and kernels harden on the plant.
Lettuce: to save lettuce seeds, allow a few lettuce plants to bolt. After flowering, the seed heads will develop white fluffy tops like dandelions. Shake the seeds into a paper bag to dry.
Green Beans: Separate green bean varieties by 10 feet to prevented unwanted crossing. Let beans fully mature on the plant. When the bean pods are dry, they can be picked and the bean seeds removed.

You can find printable seed saving envelopes here!

How to Save Tomato Seeds

Tomatoes are first on our list of seed saving tips! Unlike many other plants, tomatoes usually don’t cross with other varieties. That means that you can grow two different types of tomatoes next to each other and get pure seeds from each.

There are a few less common tomato types that can cross, however! Potato-leaf tomato types, such as Brandywine, have a flower that is more open and can be cross pollinated with other varieties by insects. Currant tomatoes will cross with other varieties of currant tomatoes, but not with any other tomato.

Harvest the seeds when the tomato is fully ripe. Simply slice the tomato in half and use a knife to scrape out the seeds.

Tomato seeds are each encased in a tiny jelly like sack that prevents the seed from sprouting inside the warm, moist fruit. The seeds have to be fermented to remove this sack. Don’t worry, fermenting tomato seeds is super easy!

To ferment your tomato seeds, scoop the seeds into a small dish. If the layer of seeds and gel is less than 1/4″ deep, add a teaspoon of water so the liquid won’t all evaporate before the seeds are ready.

Leave the dish of seeds on the counter for 2-3 days. It’s fine if it gets a little mold on top. Pour the seeds into a fine mesh strainer and rinse well. Spread the seeds out on a dry dish or waxed paper to dry completely before storage.

How to Save Pepper Seeds

Different types of peppers can be cross pollinated by insects. Sweet peppers can cross with hot peppers growing nearby. Avoiding cross pollination is one of the most important seed saving tips you’ll find!

To keep two kinds of peppers from crossing, you’ll have to cover the plants or individual flowers before they open with some type of mesh or screen to keep the bugs out!

Wait until your peppers are fully ripe to harvest them for seed. Green peppers are not ripe; most peppers will turn red, orange or yellow when they are ready.

Cut the pepper in half and scrape out the seeds. Lay the seeds out to dry. Don’t forget to label what kind they are! You can use the rest of the pepper in your kitchen as you normally would!

To learn more about saving seeds from peppers, read this article!

Saving Seeds from Cucumbers

Cucumbers are a fun crop to grow! Different types of cucumbers can cross with each other. Cucumbers will not cross with melons or squash.

Did you know that cucumbers have separate male and female flowers? Insects carry pollen from the male flowers to the females. If there is a shortage of insects, or to keep two different kinds of cucumbers from crossing, you can easily hand pollinate the fruits. Read how to hand pollinate cucumbers here!

Cucumbers are usually picked in the immature stage for eating. For seed they need to get very large and overripe. They will start to turn yellow and the rind will harden like a winter squash.

When the fruit gets to this stage, you can cut it open (you might need the help of a hammer!) and scoop out the seeds. Place your cucumber seeds in a dish and let sit on the counter for 1-2 days to ferment. Rinse them well and lay out to dry completely before storage.

Properly stored cucumber seeds can last 14 years!

How to Save Seeds from Summer Squash

Like cucumbers, summer squash have separate male and female flowers that are pollinated by insects. They can cross not just with other summer squashes and zucchinis, but also with many winter squashes and most pumpkins!

Summer squash need to be hand pollinated to keep them from crossing with other varieties. You can read how to do it here!

Also like cucumbers, summer squash are normally picked for the kitchen when they are small and immature. To save seeds from them, you’ll have to leave them on the vine until they get large and hard like a winter squash. The squash in the picture is a 20″ zucchini ready to harvest for seed!

Cut or hammer open the mature squash, scoop out the seeds and rinse them off. You can use plain water or add a mild dish soap. Spread the seeds out to dry.

How to Save Seeds from Winter Squash

I love the colorful array of shapes, colors and sizes you can find in a winter squash patch! Winter squash can cross with other winter squashes and summer squashes from the same species that are growing nearby.

For example, Acorn Squash, Pumpkins, Zucchini, Crookneck Squash, Patty Pans and many Gourds are all the same species and can be crossed by insects! You can find a list of which varieties can cross with each other, as well as instructions on how to hand pollinate squash to avoid unwanted crosses here!

When your winter squash are completely ripe, cut them open and scoop out the seeds. They can be washed with plain water, or with a little mild dish soap. Lay them out to dry completely and store for next year. That’s it!

How to Save Seeds from Corn

Corn is one of the trickier garden veggies to save seeds from, but if you want to try it, these tips will help you get started!

Because it can easily become inbred, you should grow at least 100 corn plants if you want to save seeds from them.

Corn is pollinated by wind and can cross with other kinds of corn more than two miles away! Sweet corn can cross with field corn, Indian corn and popcorn.

If two varieties are grown closer than two miles apart, corn can be pollinated by hand to keep your variety pure. You can staple paper bags onto the tassels and the ears of corn before the silks appear, and pollinate by hand every 1-2 days. I won’t lie, hand pollinating corn is a lot of work!

Most modern corn varieties are hybrids. That means they are a cross between two specific parent varieties and will not breed true if you save seeds from them. If you want to save corn seeds, pick an heirloom or open pollinated (“OP”) variety.

And finally, sweet corn needs to be left on the plant to dry out if you wish to save the kernels for seed!

Because it can be so much work, you might want to save a few years worth of corn seeds every few years rather than going to the trouble every single year.

Sweet corn seeds usually last 2-4 years, while field corn and Indian corn can last two or three times that. You can find more tips on seed storage right here and learn how to freeze seeds so they will last even longer!

How to Save Seeds from Lettuce

Lettuce is an easy vegetable to save seeds from! Different kinds of lettuce rarely cross with each other, even when they are grown side by side.

You can harvest looseleaf and romaine types once or twice for the kitchen before letting them bolt (go to seed). When lettuce goes to seed, it sends up a tall stalk from the center of the plant that branches out.

Lettuce with a tight head, such as butterhead and crisphead, might need your help cutting a slit in the center of the head of lettuce to allow the stalk to emerge.

Each branch will grow bright yellow flowers, that soon turn into little white balls of fluff, like a dandelion. When you see these little white puffballs, the seeds are ready!

To harvest lettuce seeds, take a large paper grocery bag out to the garden. Carefully bend each stalk over so it is inside the bag. Reach in the rub the flower head with your hand to release the seeds. In a few days, more seeds will ripen and you can harvest again.

How to Save Green Bean Seeds

Green beans are another crop that is super easy to save seeds from!

Green beans usually don’t cross with other varieties, even if they are growing right next to each other.

To save bean seeds, simply leave some of the pods on the vine to get nice and big. When the pods dry out, they are ready to harvest.

Pop open the pods and let the seeds fall out into a bowl. Leave the seeds out to dry thoroughly for a few weeks before storage.

If you live in a humid climate or have problems getting the seeds dry, you can use silica gel or place the seeds in a dehydrator set at 95 degrees for 12 hours.