Under the Choko Tree By Nevin Sweeney

General Notes For Saving Your Own Seed

Planning

If you plan to save you own seeds, the plants that produce those seeds will take up time and space in your veggie production process so this will need to be allowed for in your sowing plan. This is particularly so for biennial plants such as carrots, onions etc that can take up space for months while you wait for them to flower and set seed. To get a good sample it would be best to harvest the seed from several different plants, so factor the size of the flowering plant into your beds and how long they will have to be there for you to get viable seed.

Starting Stock

You will only be able to propagate from your own seed if they are open pollinated, that is to say they are non-hybrid seeds. Vegetables grown from hybrid seed can be larger, resistant to pests and/or diseases as well as display a phenomenon known as “hybrid vigour” where the hybrid is superior to its parent vegetables in terms of yield or other properties. The down side is that seed saved from a hybrid vegetable will either be sterile or not breed true, so you could wind up with any combination of the parents characteristics.

Cucumber seed ready for processing

Open pollinated or non-hybrid varieties have been grown for hundreds or thousands of years by saving seed from this crop to grow the next, so it is vital that you start with open pollinated seed. The seed packet you by from your local hardware or garden centre may be labelled “F1” if it is hybrid, or it may not. Open pollinated sweet corn seed for example is impossible to get from the usual commercial suppliers (you know – Yates, DT Brown, Mr Fothergill’s etc) . The only way to be absolutely sure is to by your seed from a reputable open pollinated seed supplier such as Eden Seeds (See the links area of this site).

Picking your mark

As mentioned above, one of the reasons for saving your own seed is to develop your own mini varieties, specifically adapted to your own microclimate but this will only happen if you save seed from your absolute best vegetable specimens. I know, I know it’s difficult, but your biggest, juiciest, tastiest, earliest (or latest, depending on what you are trying to achieve) vegetables need to be left to mature and set seed rather than consumed. By making sure you only save seed from your absolute bestest crops, over time you will select for those characteristics that make them best adapted to your particular soil, climate and aspect, so it will be well worth it in the long run.

Storage

Home saved seed, or any seed for that matter, should be stored in a cool dry area in a container that is proof against rodents, who love seeds. If you store them in paper envelopes (as I do) or the sealable plastic bags you will need to store these in a stronger outer container such as a tin biscuit box or glass jar. You could recycle small glass jars and store one variety of seed in each. It is also important to mark each batch of seed with the vegetable, variety and harvest date, particularly if you memory is as bad as mine. The harvest date will allow you to work out how long you will be able to keep planting that particular batch of seed.

Home prepared corn seed

Freezing your dry seed for a couple of days before putting them into storage will deal with any weevil eggs so that you don’t find a container full of dust and very fat weevils when you were expecting to find seeds. The seeds must be fully dried though or water freezing in them may cause damage, if in doubt, dry a little longer.

Testing

OK, so you have your seed, how embarrassed would you be if you were counting on it for your next year’s produce and for some reason it wasn’t fertile? To prevent such embarrassment you may wish to test the viability of your seed. To make the maths easy (it was never my strong subject) place either 10, 50 or 100 seeds on a sheet of paper towel, well separated from each other and wet down with a water spray. Place a second sheet of paper towel on top and wet down, then keep in a warm place, say about 25°C or so for a week and see how many germinate, this will allow you to work out your germination rate for each batch. The germination rate, apart from alerting you to an infertile batch of seed will also enable you to work out exactly how much seed of a particular variety you need to plant to get the harvest you are looking for.

A more detailed description of germination testing is available here

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