A Few Words on Saving Seed

Our garden space is usually fully employed growing produce, so we only save seed from one or two varieties a season. The reason being that plants that are developing seed occupy the ground for a long time. We grow year round so we need the growing space and it can take more than 100 days for seeds to be ready for harvest. But we do choose at least a variety or two to let go to seed.

For this post I am just going to talk about saving seed from vegetables that produce seed pods like peas and kale. They are easier to work with than those plants that bear fleshy fruits like tomatoes.This year we are saving seed from the shell pea, Wando and Lacinato Kale. The shell peas mature pretty quickly and once they start to yellow the vines can be pulled up and hung to dry until the pods are very dry and begin to split open. The Lacinato kale takes a good bit longer to mature. It is not necessary or desirable to save the seed from all the plants of a kind that are being grown, instead choose the strongest, most prolific plants and save their seed. The reason being the strongest and most prolific plants will produce the best quality seeds.

If you plan on saving seed from a vegetable, you should only grow one variety so that your seed will come true. If you plant more than one variety of the same kind of vegetable, you will have cross-pollinated (hybrid) seed. So if you want to save seed choose an open pollinated variety of seed so that the seed will reproduce like seed. Make note of the strongest plants. You can harvest from the chosen plants for awhile, but before the quality of the produce tapers off leave the produce on the plant until it has gone to seed. Once the seed pods yellow, the plants can be pulled up and hung to dry for several weeks. Then once they are completely dry the pods can be threshed to get the seeds free of the pods, picked over, sifted and winnowed. Then they can be stored in glass jars in the freezer or in mylar with an oxygen absorber if you are storing for more than 6 months.

Lacinato Kale Flowers

Kale pods are ready to thresh

A close up of the kale seed pods

For many seeds, I just put them in the freezer, since most seeds germinate better if they have a cold "season" and then I plant them again in the next season that is proper for the plant. For example, the kale was allowed to bloom and go to seed, then mature on the plant and hung to dry when completely yellowed. Once threshed and sifted I store the seed in 4 oz. mason jars with a little silica packet to control moisture, label the jar and put the jar in the freezer for a month or two. I will harvest seed in late June/early July, freeze until mid to late August and then start the seed in flats for a fall planting. I will do the same thing with the pea seed I am saving.

Threshed seed pods are now empty seed lies underneath

Sifting out the chaff

For short term storage I store in 4 oz. glass jars with a silica packet to control moisture.
I save mine from shoe boxes and other packaging and store them in a drawer until needed.

Label with kind of seed and date harvested.

Some seeds I will store for the long term in small mylar bags and oxygen absorbers, but I have to be more selective with seeds that will be stored for more than a year since not all seeds remain viable for the same amount of time. I rotate seed that I store in mylar so that it gets used within 2 years. I do not risk the possibility of germination failure by letting it go longer than that even though it is possible to save it for longer. It would be bad to count on seed that had been store for years only to discover that the seed is no longer viable.