Time for Seed Saving

Today I have  vac packed ( with label data inside the pack ) & heat sealed :-

Some of the seeds from our 22 ounce beefsteak tomato this is the second saving year for them , last year we only managed to grow  a 20 ounce'r ,  I took seeds from that for this years crop  . 

 Some 30 or so seeds from our  biggest crystal lemon apple cucumber which was about 2 & 3/4 inches across.

 Seeds from the largest three of our Sungold tomatoes as these tasted fantastic when ripe .

 Loads of snapdragon seeds ( antirrhinums )
 
About three ounces of lupin seeds 

 A level teaspoon of evening primrose oil seeds .

I still have to sort out some rubbed off Dill ( 2 table spoons worth of seeds)  that fell into a box of rubbed off coriander seeds (  seven or eight heaped table spoons worth ).  The office smells delicious . 

  Out of the 8 or 9  pounds of garlics I've selected the five of  biggest bulbs and let them dry off for a month or more  in the office  . I can't see the point of storing them any longer as for me it's garlic planting time any day now .. I might stratify half in the fridge and keep records to see which works best as this is my second year of taking some seed stock  .


There are  also some bulbils off one of the garlics to sort out though at the minute for the life of me I can't decide what to do with them . They are just a bit bigger than a large pin head and give off a really pungent garlic smell when crushed between my thumb nails . 
Anybody any idea if these can be stored for any great length of time ???


I've had a good look around the veg beds , it breaks my heart to leave two very dark skinned carrots for seeds next year as both are a good two inches across at the top . I pulled one a week or so ago & it was about 1 & 3/4 inches at the neck and 9 inches long .  It tasted OK as well as being nice and crunchy when cooked .
 
 I've got the seed stalks from a single surviving seed  of very large cabbage that a popular young worm growing ANSFG'er sent me , all others got crushed to dust in the postal franking machine somewhere along the line .  It's drying out in the office where the dehumidifier runs 24/7

 Around the begining of August I took and stored dried peas , 24 inch long runner beans and broad beans in heat sealed vac packs.  It will soon be time to sow a few for  over wintering peas and some early broad beans .

 There are still a few strawberries on our garden and on the strawberry  barrel .. I'm going to take seeds from  the next ripe ones that show as we are going to have a quite a bit more landscaping done to give us more 36 inch raised SFG beds .  These will be selected from the three plants that gave berries  tasted the best and produced  the better looking berries .
 I've decided to try the fermenting system to extract the berries for the pulp .

 

 On by the way Quiltbea
 Thanks for the tip about using greaseproof paper as the drying sheet
I dry my seeds on a tray on a shelf in the hot water tank cupboard where it is nice and dry & dries out very quick .  I had the very devil of a job taking various  dried seeds off super absorbent kitchen towel tissues this afternoon .

These are what my pepper seeds look like.

Floyd, I need to know how to save pepper seeds also.  One article I read said we need to wait until the pepper is over ripe on the plant, then pick it, let it dry out, then shake out the seeds.  I'm thinking they must be rattling around in there by then.  

Do I need to really wait for these to get 'old' before harvesting the seeds?

CC

It doesn't seem to be all that complicated.  

CapeCoddess wrote:Floyd, I need to know how to save pepper seeds also.  One article I read said we need to wait until the pepper is over ripe on the plant, then pick it, let it dry out, then shake out the seeds.  I'm thinking they must be rattling around in there by then.  

Do I need to really wait for these to get 'old' before harvesting the seeds?

CC

I don't know for sure, but one of mine rotted and fell off. today, I found 14 little seedlings growing! you could still see a TINY bit of the rotted pepper! I think it was a cayenne. We transplanted them into 6 packs to see if we can keep 'em going!

CC

All I did was scrape mine out of the pepper,  rinse them off, and put them on a plate to dry.  Read somewhere that you have to let them dry out to you can "snap" them in two.

Have to watch the video........

My best seedlings this year came out of volunteers from my compost, LOL!  I never could get it to heat up and the mini, multi colored bell peppers that I bought from Costco sprouted all over my garden.  I still have 4 plants covered with peppers and going crazy.  

I guess the decomposition that happened in the pile works similar to the fermenting?  

I bought one 4 pack of roma tomatoes last year and one of the tomatoes wasn't a roma, just a basic, medium sized tom.  Well it produced 4 or 5 volunteers on the hillside where my compost pile was for about 4 months.  I harvested pumpkins, eggpant, cantalope, honeydew and watermelon as well.

So this year, I'm intentionally doing a cold compost pile from a lot of my kitchen scraps and leaving the seeds in. I just transplant them when they pop up in the garden :-)

I never knew of fermenting seeds to save them until this Forum.  I just scraped out seeds from peppers and tomatoes last summer and they grew this year, my first year gardening.  The tomato seeds were a little crusty with pulp, though, and stuck to the small drying bowls.  Now I use parchment paper for drying.

Audrey, I refreshed my beds with my new compost and have tomatoes sprouting in all the beds and pots! The center of my 2 piles reached 140* but not the edges. I screened out obvious un-composted material but I bet a lot of seeds came through.

quiltbea wrote: Though toms and peps are self-pollinating, a wandering bee or bug can walk across a blossom and take that pollen to another nearby plant.

Somehow that oxymoronic myth hangs on and on. Tomatoes cannot release their pollen by themselves, so how can they self pollinate? Try growing tomatoes in a greenhouse and see how well they "self pollinate!"

Tomatoes are self fertile, but that's not the same thing. To release motion, they require some kind of pollinator to shake loose the pollen, and it's best if that motion is a resonant motion that will shake loose maximum quantities of pollen.

The best pollinator is a "sonicating" bee. This kind of bee pulls the flower down into the ideal position, holds on tightly, and vibrates its wing muscles. Large quantities of pollen are shaken loose when this happens.

You can make like a bee, and be an efficient pollinator by touching a vibrating tuning fork (Middle C) to the stem of the flower. If it's ripe for pollinating, you'll see a gush of pollen shoot out of the flower.

Other kinds of motion can also work, but may not release enough pollen grains to maximize the size and quality of the tomato. Wind accounts for some, animals knocking against the plants can account for some, some gardeners tap on the stems, etc. But resonant motion works best.

Remember that the ultimate size and quality of the tomato is conditional to getting the maximum possible number of incipient seeds fertilized. Research has shown that tomatoes that are buzz pollinated have a better flavor than one's that aren't.

Yep, the claim that they are "self pollinated" is oxymoronic.

You could say, though, that they are self pollenized (rather incestuous though).

Pollinate = to move viable pollen from anther to stigma, to fertilize the incipient seeds. A pollinator is usually a biotic agent, but can be wind or water for specialized types of pollen.

Pollenize = to supply the pollen for pollination, i.e. to be the father of the next generation.

NHGardener wrote:Quiltbea - that's pretty much exactly what the youtube video said to do. By fermenting, he actually meant, like you, letting mold form and then washing them, I guess that's kind of a mini-fermentation.

I know there is cross-pollination, but will a tomato still grow even if it's cross pollinated? Because I don't really care what variety I get, I like them all. I bought transplants so I don't know if they're heirloom or what, a lot of them were beefsteaks, are they always heirloom? Don't know.

I'm not picky about what kind of tomato I get, just that they grow. So can I just prepare any tomato seeds this way? Or is the issue that they won't germinate.

Of course tomatoes will grow, if cross pollinated. This is the preferred way in nature. Self fertile types of tomatoes would occasionally appear in the wild, but would normally die out after a generation or two. Mankind has selected this trait and propagated it, because it makes it easier to get the tomatoes pollinated, as the tomato was moved around the world, away from its native pollinators.

To gauge the likelihood of crossing, look at the flower of that variety. Older varieties, that are closer to the original wild tomato, will have a stigma that sticks out from the flower. This is called an exerted stigma. As bees visit, they brush against the stigma and brush off pollen grains, effectively cross pollinating the blossom.

On the other hand, varieties with a recessed stigma, don't get brushed by a bee, because the stigma is shielded by the floral parts. As a bee vibrates, there is a posibility, though a bit slim, that a few pollen grains will be bounced off the vibrating bee's abdomen, right up into the flower where it could stick to the stigma.

On average crossing with these varieties will amount to less than 5%.

So you know that you'll get mostly true next generation plants from those varieties that have recessed stigmas, while you'll have a lot of crossing with varieties with exerted stigmas.

If crossing is not important to you at all, all this is irrelevant. Consider it an entry in the Encyclopedia of Useless Information. ;-)

plantoid wrote:A tip for keeping seeds as dry as you can.

Heat up a few scoops of uncooked rice in the oven till it is slightly brown . Let it cool in the oven , then when cool slip it into sealable jar.
Every pack of seeds you make up in a zip lock bag etc add six or seven of these super dried grains to keep the seeds dry & in tip top condition .

That will work. Seeds that look perfectly dry may not be. There's nothing worse than finding mold in your seeds when you are ready to plant. I put a pac of silica gel in each seed packet I save. They are cheap, and save me any more fiddling time.

rowena___. wrote:for what it's worth, i don't ferment my tomato seeds.

They'll grow fine, but your risk is increased exposure to disease. Fermentation destroys diseases, so at least you've gotten rid of one source of infection.

A friend told me she didn't and shared seeds and they worked great. All she did was put the seeds on a paper towel and then folding the paper towel and placing it in a glass bottle.
I'm saving bean seeds. Thanks for the tip about harvesting the lowest and earlier ones first.
Other seeds I'm saving are:
Watermelon (Oh So Sweet), Muskmelons (Sweet Passion), Peas (Lincoln) and a cross I'm developing for radishes (German Giant and Early Scarlet).

@pollinator, I've been asked what Santa Claus would like to bring me by my Munchkin.

Have you any idea if the electronic sonic burst probes sold on the likes of eBay are any good for pollenating ?

Pollinator wrote:

rowena___. wrote:for what it's worth, i don't ferment my tomato seeds.

They'll grow fine, but your risk is increased exposure to disease. Fermentation destroys diseases, so at least you've gotten rid of one source of infection.

Now what kind of disease may  occur if they are not fermented?   I saved some last year and they did not ferment so I just put them in the frig.

I will try to germinate a few next week..

Hybrid seeds cannot/should not be saved for planting next season ????

I have cayanetta pepper plants that grew nicely this year, package stated they are hybrids.
Quite expensive, should I forget about saving them ?

jimmy cee wrote:Hybrid seeds cannot/should not be saved for planting next season ????

I have cayanetta pepper plants that grew nicely this year, package stated they are hybrids.
Quite expensive, should I forget about saving them ?

It depends on your thoughts about gambling.  Re planting hybrid seeds may give you a true copy of the plant you enjoyed and it may not.  You would have to know the exact history of the phenotypes and genotypes that went into making the variety you enjoyed this year. Then know a heck of a lot about genetics to predict the outcome.

Thanks MOMMA
I think I'll just pass then.
My mind is now to full of SFG, no more room for other stuff..

jimmy cee

I'd pass on it too and rather pay for seeds to perform.    

Even so I'm very leary of brand new expensive strains with big advertised claims. One of the new strains of tomato I tried out did not perform real well while other strains all around it did very well.  Guess I was paying 20 cents per seed to pay for that lovely advertising. Learned my lesson.

llama momma wrote:

jimmy cee wrote:Hybrid seeds cannot/should not be saved for planting next season ????

I have cayanetta pepper plants that grew nicely this year, package stated they are hybrids.
Quite expensive, should I forget about saving them ?

It depends on your thoughts about gambling.  Re planting hybrid seeds may give you a true copy of the plant you enjoyed and it may not.  You would have to know the exact history of the phenotypes and genotypes that went into making the variety you enjoyed this year. Then know a heck of a lot about genetics to predict the outcome.

LM you can reverse engineer so to speak 
 It should work like Lendel's sweet pea  square in reverse

 Sow numerous seeds from a hybrid  and select for the seed crop then over the next few years do the same ..you'll eventually reliably get your decent crop (   if you live long enough ) .

I agree with you - if one had time on their hands to experiment with Mendel's work.  I recall in its very simplest form,  25% would be pure like the parents.
Anyway, with the teeny-weeny bit I recall, the phenotype plants could easily hold recessive material. Quickly complicates things. Who has the tissue culture ability at home to look at plant genetics and understand exactly what to do with it...  So much easier to leave it to others, buy the seeds and be done with it.

LM ,
I'm glad you picked up on the wrong name I used...... it's this dyslexia thing ..I keep making a mucking fuddle of me worms.

One thing that puzzles me .

If you successfully get good crops after harvesting F1 seeds and for the next few years you select the best crops for seeds how may years is it before you are said to have established a new variety ?

 I'm on third my year for some crops.

Plantoid

I have read back into the history of some great "heirlooms" and really that is how they get started and as long as someone has the time to continue to keep good records and observe the characteristics it seems that you have an OP plant.
Which plants are you referring to?

Hybrids can be patented, right? So I wonder if experimenting with breeding them and trying to stabilize a new variety has legal ramifications.