How To Properly Save Seeds From Your Garden

The first seeds that I intentionally saved from my garden here in Colorado were from some gigantic African marigolds.

It was the first year that I had enough planting space to grow tomatoes, and learned that it was beneficial to grow marigolds as a companion plant to tomatoes. I did not have any seeds at that point so I relied on my local nursery to provide me with the plants I needed. It was already mid June and the varieties of plants were limited, so I just grabbed whichever marigolds were available at that point.

They bloomed out to be the biggest, most beautiful orange flowers I’d ever seen! The plants were as tall as my tomato plants and the blooms were almost as wide as my hand.

I knew I wanted to grow these again, and I knew I wanted to share them with fellow gardeners. So I plucked a few dried flower heads one afternoon.

Once I pulled apart that first head and saw how many seeds were in that one flower, and how many potential future plants that one flower could make, it hit me. I WANT TO SAVE ALL THE SEEDS! 

It is so easy to just purchase seeds from the store, or even purchase plants that you can just plop in your garden for the season. But if you have the space and time, I highly suggest attempting to save your own seed supply. Why?

For one, it is so cost effective. I could purchase started marigold plants year after year for a few bucks. I could go and pick up a pack of seeds and do it that way. Or, I could get SO many more seeds for FREE by saving them myself.

The cost savings are just icing on the cake when it comes to the benefits of saving your own seeds. The biggest reason I like to save seeds from my own garden, for my own garden, is because I am saving them from plants that are acclimated to my area.

I was hooked at that point and have scoured the internet and my local library for any resources I could find. Resources and information specifically about how to properly save seed for optimum germination and growth for the following years. If you are wanting the biggest, best and healthiest plants year after year, there are a few guidelines to follow and terms you should familiarize yourself with.

A Few Terms You Should Know

You can find these terms on most of your purchased seed packets, but do you really understand what they mean? I’ll lay it out here for you as simply as possible:

Self-pollinating

Flowers that are self-pollinating do not need the help of other flowers or insects in order to create viable seed. They have both the male and female parts inside a single flower in order to complete that task on their own. Think of tomatoes, beans, peas – those are good examples of self-pollinating plants.

Open pollinated

On the other hand, open-pollinated crops do enlist the help of pollinators in order to pollinate their flowers and therefore, set a crop. If the female flowers are not pollinated by male flowers, they do not produce a crop. These types of plants have the ability to cross-pollinate with other similar varieties, so it takes more care to ensure you are not accidentally crossing two different varieties.

I grew zucchini and butternut squash at the same time one year, and the following year I had a few volunteer plants pop up. I let a plant grow up and discovered it was developing a mutant zucchini-butternut squash type fruit. It had obviously cross pollinated without my help the previous year, so if I had decided to save the seeds from the zucchini with the intention of getting more the following year, I would have been out of luck.

Heirloom

When a seed is marked as an ‘heirloom’, it means it is a seed that was open-pollinated and has traits that have been carefully selected for, usually for at least 50 years. These are seeds that are normally handed down generation through generation. These seeds will grow true to type, meaning they are a stable variety.

Hybrid

A hybrid plant is one that was intentionally cross-pollinated from two varieties in order to create a new, different variety with certain desired traits. Now, you could save the seeds from (F1) hybrids, but just know that if you plant it, you may not get a plant that looks anything like the parent plant(s).

Choose Wisely!

Now that you know the seed-saving terms, you’ll understand that self-pollinating varieties are the easiest to collect seed from, but open pollinated varieties are not impossible! But now is the chance for you to do your part in selecting for only the best and healthiest specimens to pass on!

For example: those African marigolds I mentioned above? I had 4 plants total. Not every single plant performed in the same way, and no two flowers looked the same. I was choosy in which flower heads I plucked to save seed from. I chose long lasting, early bloomers from attractive and bushy plants. That is what I decided to select for.

Same with any edibles you decide to save seed from. You don’t want to save seed from a disease-ridden tomato plant that barely managed to pump out a tomato. You want to select the best looking fruit from the best looking plants.

Annuals vs. Biennials

There are some plants that set fruit and flower and seed then die all within the same growing season. Those are your annuals. Then, there are others that are called biennials, that take the first year to get established, then flower and set seed during the second year.

Good examples of biennials are chard, beets, and onions. They don’t bolt and go to seed when they are stressed like some annuals do, like lettuces and kale.

So if you are starting some onions from seed this year and are dying to collect seeds from them, know that you will have to wait a year until that happens!

Wet Vs. Dry Seeds

Seeds come in quite a few flavors. Each plant has their own evolutionary mechanism to ensure their seeds are not only well protected from damage, but that they are also able to spread easily.

So when I’m talking about wet seeds, I’m talking about those that are typically encased inside of a fruit. Think of tomato seeds, watermelon seeds and squash seeds.

Then thinking of dry seeds like lettuce, dill and marigolds, once they are dried out they are very easy to store and spread!

With both types of seeds though, keep in mind that you want to wait to harvest them until they reach maturity. For tomatoes, for example, that doesn’t mean the same time as prime eating time. It means letting the tomato stay on the vine until it is practically falling off of the vine. Same with squash and cucumbers – it means letting them get way past the point of being edible. This ensures that the seeds inside are well established and viable.

When dealing with wet seeds, you’ll want to wash away the goop that encases the seeds. An easy way to do that is to let them sit for a few days in water. This ferments them a bit (without rotting them!) and allows any bad seeds and gunk to float to the top. After a few days, scrape off the floating materials and rinse and dry your perfect seeds!

For both wet and dry seeds, once you are ready to store them away for next year, it is so important to make sure they are absolutely dry. Any moisture can cause mold and mold can cause your seeds to go bad. We don’t want that!

An easy way to avoid that is to completely dry them out for a few days then store them in paper bags instead of plastic or glass at first. Once you know they are completely dry, you could absolutely transfer them to your container of choice, making sure they’re kept in a cool, dark location. I like to use small coin envelopes like THESE to store my homegrown seeds.

Read all about how to choose which seed storage system is best for your needs by clicking HERE!

I think that about covers it! Obviously there’s a lot more to it than just plucking a flower and deciding you want to save it. It’s understanding the genetics behind the decisions, knowing how to select the right plants to save seeds from, and knowing how to properly handle them after you have collected them.

As always, don’t be shy! Leave a comment below, let us know if you are a first time seed saver, or if you have a go-to plant you save seeds from every year!

Happy growing,

Becca