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Saving seeds - vegetable gardening

Flower & Garden Magazine, Oct-Nov, 1993 by Roger M. Griffith

With ride 100-year-old Grand a Purdy showed me the tomato plants he had raised to setting-out size in his greenhouse. Grown in 3-inch peat pots, they were deep green and squat, with stems as thick as your little finger.

He had high hopes for them, he said, even if they were hybrids. "But if they

don't do what I expect of them, I'll try something different next season."

They didn't and he did.

His remark reflected more than his confidence that he had additional gardening seasons ahead. He experimented each year to prove that those highly touted hybrids couldn't match, in taste or any other way, "his" tomatoes, raised from seeds he saved, ear after year.

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Saving seeds was a habit, he explained. The habit, and the seeds, had been passed down from generation to generation, from the days when Purdys first tilled the Battenkill River valley soil. Back then, Redcoats ranked high on Vermonters' pest lists.

Seed from crops grown on the land, he believed, had time to get adjusted. They became familiar with the soil and the weather. Result: the plants were healthier and the vegetables tasted better. Also, you could depend on them, he said. That meant a lot when a cellar had to be filled with home-canned fruits and vegetables and bins of potatoes, apples and root crops in the fall, or it was going to be lean eating by late March.

Try saving seeds and you'll agree with Grandpa Purdy. One reason for your success will be you. You'll raise them with pride, so you'll give your seed plants the favored spot in the garden, water and weed them fastidiously, defend them from pests, then save seeds from only the best plants.

Before you begin, a few basics: Don't raise hybrids for seeds. Select open-pollinated varieties with the characteristics you want, such as early-maturing tomatoes, late-bolting lettuce or oh-so-tasty melons. Store only very dry seeds. Don't use heat in drying them. Keep them in airtight containers, such as glass jars, and in a cool, dry place. Heat and moisture shorten the viability of seeds. Label the containers; it's easy to forget which variety you finally decided to save.

Begin your adventures in saving seeds with something simple, like the vegetables described in this article.

Beans and peas are very simple. They're self-pollinating (each flower pollinates itself), so you don't have to worry about unexpected crosses.

It is easy to save seeds by gathering peas or beans that have passed their prime. That's the easy way -- but not the best.

Instead, plant a crop strictly for seeds. Put a ribbon around it as a reminder. Then do everything you can to grow prize plants. Rogue out any weak ones. Your goal is quality, not quantity. Finally, so that the beans or peas will have time to mature into the highest quality seeds, wait until the bean pods are brown and the peas are rattling dry in their pods.

Then pull up the plants and spread them out under cover to dry further. Shell the peas and beans by hand if you have less than a bushel. Thresh them out if you have more. Spread them on a blanket or canvas and beat them with a flail made of two sticks tied together.

It's difficult to dry beans and peas completely. However, if stored in paper bags rather than airtight containers, and kept in a cool, dry place, they will continue to dry.

Ready for something a bit more difficult?

Tomatoes. They, too are self-pollinating so don't worry about undesirable crosses. Select your best tomatoes when they are fully ripe, but not rotting. Scoop out pulp and seeds, and place them and a small amount of water in a glass jar. Keep the mixture in a cool (about 70 degrees) room, stirring it two or three times daily. The resulting fermentation will remove the soft coating from the seeds, and the seeds worth saving will sink to the bottom. After three or four days, add more water and pour off the pulp and water. Rinse the seeds several more times until they are clean, then spread them on paper towels. They'll dry in one or two days.

Eggplant. Remove the seed portion from the eggplant, then wash it in a basin of water, working it with your fingers. The seeds will separate out and settle at the bottom. Dry them.

Peppers. They're the easiest vegetable of all. Take seeds from well-ripened peppers, remove any unwanted material, then dry the seeds.

Lettuce. This one is a bit more difficult. Crisphead varieties are slow to produce seeds, so in the North you will raise a seed crop over two years. Plant the seeds late, in well-drained soil, so you will have 2-inch plants when the first heavy frost hits. Mulch them with straw or leaves. Uncover them in the spring and thin them to one foot apart. When they reach full growth, pull the leaves away from the top of each plant, so seed stalks can grow.

In areas where winter frosts are light, plant seeds in the fall and raise seed plants without interruption.

For other lettuce varieties, plant early. Start plants indoors or in a cold frame for an early start. Transplant them a foot apart in the garden.

Saving seeds - vegetable gardening

Flower & Garden Magazine, Oct-Nov, 1993 by Roger M. Griffith

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