How to save your own seeds.

As the nights draw in and the days and nights get a little cooler the natural cycle of the plants in our garden comes to an end.  Their sole goal in their short little lives is to reproduce – so the seed cycle is the final one. They literally “go to seed”.   Each plant has their own method of scattering that seed then they die, become compost and the cycle starts over. We can collect that seed to resow ourselves next Spring in a patch of our choosing, save it or share it with others.

Over the next month or two (March and April in Southern Hemisphere) we will be tidying up our gardens and getting the beds prepared for the garden season the following spring. Before you pull everything out keep an eye out for some really good produce. Your best bean producing vine, your most delicious tomato plant, really good potatoes, herbs, lettuces, silverbeet or whatever.  Mark them so that as they die down you can harvest seed from them.

Tomatoes – this is a good way to share rare varieties and keep the old types from disappearing.  Choose a fine example of the one you want to save the seed from, make sure it has well ripened, then squash it.  Put the seeds onto some paper towels to let the flesh dry away from them. When well dried out put the seeds into an envelope marked with the name of the variety and the date.

Beans.  Let the vines dry off and some of the pods dry.  Then pick and store a cool dry spot.  I never end up eating all the broad beans I grow so save a whole heap and use as my green crop about this time of the year.  You can dry beans to eat as well – use a bean that is designed for drying such as borlotti, and let dry on the vine. Once well dried off put into an airtight jar for use in the kitchen later.

Potatoes. Even though it is recommended to get fresh certified see potatoes each year, it is possible to keep good disease free tubers for the following year. We would only have some of our old varieties if people didn’t do this. Choose the best looking disease free obviously healthy potatoes from good plants.  Keep them in a cool dry spot in your shed over winter.

Lettuces and herbs  - cut off mature heads and shake into a paper bag. Keep in a named envelope. If you think you are going to miss the seeds or it looks like rain, you can tie a paper bag over plants you really want to save the seed from. Lots of flowers will provide seed for next year as well.  Either scatter or save until spring and sow in the usual way.

Obviously if we are storing all these seeds in our shed, then we need a shed with space to do our storing!  Pumpkins, corn for the hens, apples, carrots – there are lots of things that we can store for winter use.  Having lengths of wire netting suspended above head height is a good one. Only use disease free produce and check regularly.

I have a good supply of brown wage envelopes which are a nice size for seed saving.  Send me a stamped self-addressed envelope and I will post you back a half dozen. Send to K Mackay PO Box 115 Palmerston, Otago, 9443.