Saving Seeds for next years garden?

[Uncle Doug]

Anyone ever have much luck saving Seeds for next years garden?

I had a couple of cantalope that the coons got to so I just tossed them over on the compost pile. They split open spilling seeds. Within a few days almost everyone had sprouted. The next garden fresh one I planted the seeds in a new area and they all also sprouted.

This got me thinking I could dry and save some seeds for next year. I rinsed off a couple of hundred over the past few days and left to dry on newspaper in a cool area.

Should I freeze them or just package them dry to keep them fresh? What other crops will this work well with?

 

[JohnDeere4300]

Anyone ever have much luck saving Seeds for next years garden?

I had a couple of cantalope that the coons got to so I just tossed them over on the compost pile. They split open spilling seeds. Within a few days almost everyone had sprouted. The next garden fresh one I planted the seeds in a new area and they all also sprouted.

This got me thinking I could dry and save some seeds for next year. I rinsed off a couple of hundred over the past few days and left to dry on newspaper in a cool area.

Should I freeze them or just package them dry to keep them fresh? What other crops will this work well with?

All of our seeds are "Heirloom" seeds except for corn & beans, and we bought them several years ago.

We got them here. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - 1275 Heirloom Garden Seed Varieties!

What we do is save some seed from the garden & let them dry... Then after they have dried we put them in a 'zip-lock bag' and write the name on the bag...We don't keep them in the freezer.

The only seeds that I've put in the freezer are sweet cherry, black cherry, peach, pear & apple seeds... and I've started trees from them.

 

[jinman]

Doug, the seeds I have saved from cantaloupes are a hybrid of the other cantaloupes in the same patch. I had Hales Best, ****** Melon, and Japanese melons all in the same patch. The ****** Melons the second year were different from the originals, more like a hybrid with the Hales Best. I will no longer try to save my own seeds because of that. If I had a large acreage full of melons, I'd feel confident in the seeds, but cantaloupes and other curcubits like squash and zucchini will hybridize due to cross-pollenization. The other bad thing is making sure you don't have plant viruses and diseases in the seeds. I would dry them and then wash them in a mild bleach solution at the very least. Otherwise, you might have weak plants that die early due to disease. I mostly leave seeds to professional suppliers who take precautions and have good reputations for healthy seeds. I sometimes will plant seeds from a special melon I've found, but only one time. After that the seeds are unreliable.

BTW: I picked what may be my last four cantaloupes tonight. There are a couple of more small ones on the vines, but they may not make it to maturity before the plants die. I've been eating so much cantaloupe that it's about to come out my ears.

 

[DocHeb]

Whether it will work is based on the parentage of the seeds you have bought. Some seeds will breed true - they are called heirloom plants and are self fertilizing and will grow the same plant year after year.
Some seeds are hybrids - intentionally bred offspring of two different sub-species parents. They will not consistantly breed true which means may not have the same plant characteristics when the next generation grows. Either way, seeds can be effectively stored by drying them well, sealing them in small ziplock bags, and keeping them in a containter in the refrigerator. The freezer will tend to dry the seed out too much.

 

[MossRoad]

We haven't bought bean seeds in a long time. I just grab some of the dried pods that were missed during picking that show up on the vines once the leave die, remove the bean seeds and store them in a cool, dry place over the winter.

Cherry tomatoes seem to pop up all over our garden on their own. I transplant any I find to a convenient spot and enjoy them over the summer.

Melons tend to pop up on their own as well. The seeds don't seem to die in our compost pile and sprout the next year when I use the compost for fertilizer. However, as others have mentioned, they tend to be different from the last year due to hybrid parents.

 

[jimmyj]

We save lots of seeds like melons, beans, tomato. They are getting more costly each year so I can see us doing it more and more as time goes on. We keep them in ziplocs usually, some in glass jars with lids. We don't freeze any, never thought of that.

It works well and saves us money. We still buy some plants as transplants, peppers in particular as they are so darned slow to germinate.

 

[Bird]

Melon seeds (cantaloupe, watermelon, ****** melon) were the only ones I saved, but I had the same luck as jinman. They just weren't worth saving.

 

[randy41]

to save open pollinated (non-hybrid)seeds that will be true to their parent, they have to be isolated from other varieties when they are growing or the seed will be cross pollinated. seeds from hybrid varieties will not produce the same variety as what they come from.
i think seed prices have been increasing tremendously over the last few years. It ain't cheap to print those colorful catalogs.

 

[Chuck52]

I haven't saved any seed from my garden yet, but I might save some of the pole bean seed and maybe my pink-eyed peas this year. The packs of tomato, cucumber, pepper and many other seeds I buy usually have several years of seeds in them. Bean and peas on the other hand I have to buy every year. I probably wouldn't get enough bush bean seed unless I deliberately set out to save some, but I don't need that many pole bean seeds. The pink-eyes are producing so much that I haven't kept up with them, and I probably already have enough dry seeds from them. However, I bought about twice as much as I needed to begin with, so I have next years seeds already. I planted at least 15 different tomato varieties this year, many open pollinated types. From what I've read, it is likely that many of the seeds from the OP varieties will produce true to type even so, but I'll probably not save them since at least some, and maybe many, won't. Besides, I still have seed for most of those in the original packs. If you want to save OP tomato seeds, it is best to at least segregate the plants a bit...a few feet, for example. However, most tomatoes are self-pollinated, or are pollinated by really close plants. There's another good web site out there called GardenWeb which has everything you'd ever ask on the subject.

Chuck

 

[Uncle Doug]

Thanks for all the feedback. I may save a few for next year, The rest I may use up at the deer lease out in the food plot. I got a seed catalog in the mail this week and after seeing the prices for even the small packs it got me to thinking about saving the seeds.

My cantaloupe production has slowed down also but still getting 3-4 a week, They are not getting as large as before. Hard to keep enough moisture in the ground with 100 degree temps almost every day. Even watering twice a day just keeps them going slowly. Had 2 more pepper plant give up on me this past week. Full of peppers as all the others. Down to 6 good plants and 6 that were planted late and just now starting to produce. The heat has stunted the water mellen, yhe 3-4 left out there have quit growing and some of the vines have dried up.

I tilled the rear garden and the church garden this past week. Starting to think about the fall garden. The only things back in the rear garden are some pumpkin which we planted too late I think, and the replant of the cantaloupe which are growing good.