Tuesday Tips: Seed Saving Strategies

Before we move on, I have to take a bow for the double alliteration up there in the title.

Okay. Moving on. 

Today's Tuesday Tip (there I go again!) is brought to you by Jilly in Australia, who e-mailed me to suggest that perhaps I could do a Tuesday tips post about saving seeds. She told me she possibly overbought seeds this year (which I take to mean she has A LOT OF SEEDS), and wanted to know how best to keep them for next year.

Also, she had a real Tomato Crazy year and was very excited about it. I am jealous.

Anyway. Seeds!

Okay, so I have never been very careful about storing seeds before. In fact, I just had them in A.'s old insulated lunch bag on top of the refrigerator, tossed in there all willy nilly, which resulted in some of the seeds spilling out of open packets, which I then sprinkled in a garden bed just to see what they were. *

Don't be like me. 

At least, don't be like former me. Be like current me, who sorted all my seeds and put them in sealing envelopes** and properly stored them upright in an opaque box in A.'s office, which stays very cool all winter and is a much better place to keep seeds than my kitchen.

Yay me!

The best environment for keeping seeds is cool, dry, and dark. 

You can keep them in the envelopes they came in, just fold down the top and secure it with a paper clip so they don't all spill out. Ahem. 

Jilly also wanted to know how long seeds will last. That kind of depends on the seed. There are lots of places online that give this information. Here's one from a good source. That document also gives good information on how to test if seeds are viable by sprouting them before planting.

What's really fun--for A. and me, anyway--is saving your own seeds. You can only do this with non-hybrid varieties, though. Seeds from hybrids won't reproduce a plant identical to the parent plant. 

We started saving seeds much more consciously this year, and we've saved quite a few things. 

We have a TON of saved squash seeds from various varieties. These are probably the easiest to save, because if you can scoop the guts out of a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, you can save squash seeds. You just put some of the seeds on a paper plate, let them dry very thoroughly, then stick them in a labeled paper envelope (name and date).

Do not, incidentally, store them in plastic zip-top bags. Because if they aren't absolutely, 100%, all the way dry, they will mold. And that is disgusting. I mean, so I hear. Ahem.

Also easy to collect are seeds from herbs. These form as seed heads after the plant flowers. Once the seed heads are dry, you can put a paper bag over the top of the plant, shake the plant right into the bag, then put the seeds in a labeled envelope. Same method with lettuce, which is a prolific seeder. I do not anticipate ever having to buy lettuce seed again.

Again, don't use a plastic bag. Not because of mold this time, but because the seeds stick to plastic thanks to the wonders of static cling, and are very, very hard to get out to store.

Tomato seeds are also very easy to save. (Lucky for you, Jilly!) I just squeeze some of the tomato guts where the seeds live out onto a paper plate and let them dry all the way. They kind of stick to the plate, but they're pretty easy to scrape off.

Root crops like carrots, beets, etc. are trickier, since they need a lot longer to go to seed. I've never actually let any of those go to seed yet, but those seeds are pretty cheap, so I'm not as motivated to save them as I am something like pepper seeds, which are crazy expensive.

Okay! I hope that answered the question. And I hope anyone who was thinking of saving seeds is now more motivated to try it. Or maybe anyone who wasn't thinking about it, is now. 

It's really not hard, and it's just one more thing you can do for yourself, rather than relying on an outside source that may or may not have what you want when you want it.

* They were mostly arugula seeds, which I let grow over the summer and go to seed, so I could save the seeds from them. In a properly sealed envelope this time.

** I bought these envelopes specifically for seeds, but they're reeeeeallly small. Bigger seeds like squash seeds have to go in multiple envelopes. They're great for tiny seeds like tomatoes and peppers, but next time I will buy slightly bigger ones.