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Post by daylilydude on May 19, 2018 9:14:11 GMT -5
Most of us save seed from tomatoes and peppers, but are there others that you save seed from and how do you do it, letting your greens bolt or letting those beans dry on the bush/vine?
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Post by octave1 on May 19, 2018 9:24:32 GMT -5
Parsley is one plant I always save seeds from. Since parsley seed is highly perishable, I stopped buying it and I now rely on my own saved seed exclusively. Very easy to collect too.
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Post by brownrexx on May 19, 2018 9:34:16 GMT -5
The only plants that I really save seed from are dry beans. I let them dry on the vine and then save enough for next year. I don't even save tomato seeds usually.
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Post by september on May 19, 2018 9:35:57 GMT -5
Besides tomatoes and peppers, -beans, but I can never decide how long to dry them on the vines. I usually harvest most things before they have a chance to go to seed. Dill reseeds itself for me, though I do save some seed. Flower seeds of various kinds.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 19, 2018 9:45:50 GMT -5
I tend to be a seed collector therefore I am usually looking to save seed from most anything I grow if possible.
Tomatoes, Beans, Squash, Okra, Peas, Flowers, etc.
There are some exceptions though. I generally don't save onion, corn, carrots or cucumber
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Post by paulf on May 19, 2018 9:58:00 GMT -5
Only tomatoes...and lately not many. I prefer to keep my favorite seed sellers in business as much as possible.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 19, 2018 10:50:58 GMT -5
I tend to keep seeds only from things I can't get any longer, or are only available from places I wouldn't order much else from. Or things that I don't really know the identity of, like that lettuce I got in a "mix", that grew and tasted so well that I had to keep growing it! Other greens I never save greens from, as most are biennial, and I get a huge number of seeds in a packet, since they are so small. Sometimes I save pepper seeds from plants that grow much larger and more productive, and/or produces earlier, than average. I also save some tomatoes like this, but I rarely see these major differences.
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Post by meandtk on May 19, 2018 11:41:16 GMT -5
I've saved some squash and field corn seed. Maybe a few cukes, too.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 19, 2018 14:50:57 GMT -5
I like to trade seeds with folks, so I need to have something to offer! Plus I like the idea of growing from my own seeds when I can. I've saved seed from a number of things: tomatoes, peppers, okra, melons and watermelons, eggplant, beans, peas, squash, lettuce, radishes, mustard, scallions, parsley, basil, chives, garlic chives, (and probably other herbs I'm forgetting), marigolds, echinacea, sunflowers (and probably other flowers I'm forgetting). I sometimes save garlic heads for replanting; but those technically aren't seed. I have never saved corn seed because I don't have the space to grow enough plants to prevent inbreeding depression. I have never saved carrot seed, but I might someday. Usually that's because I am in a hurry to pull the carrots so I can plant okra, melons, or squash in their space. So far I haven't saved cucumber seed because I tend to grow hybrid cucumbers. Even with the seed saving and trading, I end up buying some seeds every year. There is always something I wasn't able to save seed from, or something new that I want to try.
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Post by spacecase0 on May 19, 2018 20:34:51 GMT -5
I save seeds for everything I grow. my goal has been to be a source of seeds and not a consumer of them.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 19, 2018 20:51:18 GMT -5
On the subject of seed saving, I have a large number (I think I got 200 of them on eBay) of muslin bags, to bag the unopened flower buds for peppers, and other things that cross easily. Good for putting a bunch of seasonings in a pot for stock or pickles, or if making beer, what it was sold for originally.
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Post by guruofgardens on May 19, 2018 21:18:56 GMT -5
Tomatoes, peppers, flowers are the seeds I usually save. If some of the lettuce starts to go to seed, I pick the dried heads and scatter the seeds in the garden, just in case they decide to germinate for Fall.
The squash usually don't come true so I save none of them. I've tried saving some hybrid cucumbers and they usually do pretty well, but do purchase new seed every 3-4 years.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 20, 2018 11:39:18 GMT -5
I have a roll of tulle to make bags from for tomatoes and peppers. I will save seeds from unbagged tomatoes if I can't get the bagged tomatoes to take - the chances of a cross are fairly low and I warn anyone who gets my seeds if the tomatoes weren't bagged. But peppers cross a LOT in my garden - whenever I have let volunteers come up they have nearly ALL been crosses of the previous year's peppers. I guess my local bumblebees really like pepper blossoms. So I don't save seeds from unbagged pepper flowers any more. I don't really have space to isolate by distance. So, most of the other vegetables I isolate by growing just one variety at a time. (My nearby neighbors do very little gardening, so I don't really have to worry about crossing with anything they might be growing.) Or I do it by staggering the timing of the plantings so that the variety that I want to save seeds from blooms first. Like guruofgardens said, squash cross very readily. I only save squash seeds if I have only one kind of squash in bloom. I have hand-pollinated squash to improve fruit set, but if I ever try to save squash seed when I am growing more than one kind of squash, I'll have to learn to bag the blooms, too. Ditto with melons. Okra I do a little differently. Okra has one or a few large blooms open per day per plant. I also grow only a few plants of each variety at a time. So with okra, I can actually pick off the bloom buds from all but one variety every day. I let that one variety keep blooming, and in a week or less several uncrossed pods have set on the plant(s) I want to save seed from. I mark those pods and then let all the other plants resume blooming. Actually, I have done that with eggplant as well, since I usually only grow two plants at a time. So it's not a big deal to pinch off blooms from one plant for a week or so. EDIT: The hybrid cucumbers I grow are usually parthenocarpic types (Sweet Success and Cool Breeze are my favorites). They don't make seeds at all if they don't cross with another variety. So, there's no seed saving from them.
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Post by guruofgardens on May 20, 2018 17:09:55 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, I also use either tulle or nylon netting and encase some of my hot peppers in the material. Each plant has a cheap metal tomato cage around it so it's easy to keep the seeds true - wrap the material around the cage and use clothespins to keep it closed.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 20, 2018 18:27:33 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL guruofgardens I used tulle for the first time this year, to enclose squash from SVB (we'll see how that works), and even though the holes are very small, it seems to me that pollen could get through, and I'd be worried that peppers, the way they pollinate so easily with the wind, would still cross. You haven't had this problem? I've never had a problem with bagged tomatoes pollinating themselves. I used to just tap the bag several times, or now I use the vegi-bee to vibrate the stem, and I always get fruits.
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Post by spacecase0 on May 20, 2018 22:31:03 GMT -5
I use Organza bags and they seem to work just fine. but then I don't try them on wind only pollinated things like corn. I get them at the wedding supply section of the craft stores the small ones work for tomatoes and things like that, but need the large ones for things like squash and onions. I keep them out of the sun when not in use and have never needed to replace one.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 21, 2018 12:40:42 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL guruofgardens I used tulle for the first time this year, to enclose squash from SVB (we'll see how that works), and even though the holes are very small, it seems to me that pollen could get through, and I'd be worried that peppers, the way they pollinate so easily with the wind, would still cross. You haven't had this problem? Um, not yet, but then I am pretty new to pepper seed saving. One other thing that might make a difference is that I have very little wind here in the summer except during thunderstorms; wet pollen doesn't blow around.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 21, 2018 12:54:08 GMT -5
I have a generous amount of wind here in the summer, Laura_in_FL. In fact, the first time that I covered my peppers with a row of Agribon, I was wondering if my peppers would self pollinate, figuring that they wouldn't get the wind under there, but I was amazed that they pollinated as well as the uncovered ones, probably because they still got moved around very well under there! I never worried about it again.
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