by Sammy Stein

Created on: September 28, 2009

Saving seeds from your favorite garden plants or vegetables can be a great way of getting new plants next season for a fraction of the cost of buying new ones.

A few things are needed to be considered before you actually take the seeds. First, if you are going to save vegetable seeds, decide which ones you want to save seeds from and allow them to come into flower and set seed. Many crops are eaten before flowering such as cabbage, cauliflowers, carrots (which are biennials eaten at the end of the first year) and marrows so younedd to allow them to stay in the ground longer to flower and set seed.

Be aware also that if the plant you are taking seeds from is a hybrid (F1), it will not breed true from seed bacuse the plants are cross breeds so only a quarter of the seeds will be the same as the plant you take seeds from., The rest will be the same type as the original parent plants or different crosses. It can be fun to find out with flowering plants but not so good for vegetables as you obviously want the same productive crop as you got last year and some of the original parent plants are small and far less productive. They may also be prone to diseases or pests.

Let some of the crop grow on to flower and form seed and wait until the seed head dries. Then carefully cover the dried seed heads with plastic bags before breaking them off. Open the seed pods and shake the seed into the bags. Transfer the seed into labelled paper bags and store in a cool, dark place (such as a special seed box) until sowing time.

For flowering plants, again if they are cross bred plants you will get few of the same next year but it can be fun to see what colors and flowers you get from seed. If they are pure bred then you will, of course, get the same plant types. Dead heading your flowers can mean you get repeat flowering and more seed heads but the same applies- wait until they are dried, carefully take them from the parent plant and shake the seeds into plastic bags and then paper envelopes clearly labelled. Store in the box until sowing time.

Store seed in a dry atmosphre to prevent rot and early germination as you want your seeds to germinate at the best possible time.

Some seeds need particular treatments to get them to germinate to mimic natural conditions. Large seeds may need scarifying (scraping or nicking) to mimic passage through an animal's gut and others may need several weeks in the fridge to mimic the cool of winter, and then a warm place to stimulate them to germinate

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