Seed harvesting from your own plants

[ladyhk13]

I would like to know if any of you harvest your own seeds from your plants. If you do, could you please share what ones you do and your technique? I have several and I'm not sure which way to do it. Like sweet banana peppers...when do you pick the pepper? Do you take it when it is yellow and then open the pepper and take the seeds out and let them dry or do you let the pepper dry on the plant before picking? I also have sorrano peppers with the same question. I have thai peppers that are very small (but pack a whallop!) and they are best dried for storage so do I go ahead and take the seeds when the pepper is dried and then cut it open? The same question for your herbs.....
How are you storing them them?

[ladyhk13]

Also, how do you harvest seed from items like potato and make them last throughout the winter without rotting?

[JustAPrepper]

I have the book Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth. It's one of the most recommended sources out there for saving seeds but I find it overwhelming. All the information is there but the format of the book is hard to follow...for me, anyway.

Saving seed is going to be an issue for us and we know that, because our garden is so small. Some things need to be left for months and that takes up valuable real estate in our little Patch. Right now, I am still experimenting with seeds to see what varieties grow best in our area so I haven't done much saving but I did get some Lettuce seeds this past Spring. I got one harvest out of the plants before the weather turned hot and they bolted. It took about two months for them to completely flower out. Once they did I bent the stalks in to a pillow case and cut them off the plant. Then I took some safety pins and secured the stalks inside the case (kind of hard to explain) then I brought the cases inside and hung them so the seeds could dry. As I get time I pull a stalk out and harvest seeds out of the dried "fluff". It's very time consuming so I decided to do a germination test a couple months ago to see if I had done it right. Turns out I did. They sprouted in a few days.

Potato seeds are nothing more than baby potatoes as far as I know. DH grew some in tubs last Spring (true seed potatoes that he purchased - not potatoes from the grocery store because they are treated) but our harvest was so small it was pitiful. One (Florida) gardener I follow wraps her "seeds" in newspaper and keeps them in her closet until the next planting season. Her crops are amazing so if we ever get that far I'm going to try her method.

[ladyhk13]

I picked the "flowers" off of one of my lettuce plants and they are sittting on a paper towel on my counter...it is all fluffy and I haven't taken any seed out of it but I guess that I got the right part then? The potatoes were ordered last season from an heirloom company and I didn't get them all pulled up. While digging the other day I found some that were still small and 2 that actually had green leaves growing up through the ground. I took the smaller taters and put them in a brown paper bag in the pantry and the ones that were actually growing I put in a pot, don't know if they will survive the winter or not. I don't know if the others will stay "fresh" until spring though? I know they aren't treated so maybe they will be ok? I hope. I had lettuce in a pot and when it all died back (the same one I got the seeds from) I thought it was done but all of a sudden it started growing all over again. I had kind of tapped the stalks into the pot as they dried so I am assuming that they are good. AND I'm getting a second batch of lettuce before winter by accident, cool huh?

[ravensgrove]

So here's my experience on seed saving...which I have done for years. I have successfully saved everything but lettuces. Its a real pain and the seed is so unbelievably tiny its a pain in the arse and then after all the work I only had like a 10% germination rate.
Choys, cabbage, carrots and other tubers et all, let flower but before they drop pollen grab them, hang them upside down tie them with twine or the like and store in a dry place. Then shake the seed out later.
Everything else I take straight from the fruit and rinse all the goo off and dry on paper towels. When you store your seed be sure it has oxygen. NEVER STORE SEED IN A FREEZER.
Potatoes, we just keep 5 lbs of potatoes whole in a clutch outside under some tires. In the spring I pull them, and plant them out...we plant in tire stacks here because our ground is so rocky.
Corn I just take a cob, peel the husk off and let it sit out in the house for a couple weeks until it drys out, then scrape the kernels off.

Seed saving is one of those things I think people make sound like brain surgery and my Mom and I just snicker as we put our seeds on paper towels and call it good.

[JustAPrepper]

Raven, I really appreciate your experience. For me, I can't store potatoes the way you do. Too hot and humid. They'll rot before the next plant and we have no basements or cellars so we have to find other ways of keeping things cool and dry. Newspaper to catch surface humidity and the lowest part of the house, some where on the floor, is always going to be the coolest as cold air sinks. Not ideal but it's all we got.

On your root crops...how long did it take for them to flower? It took my Lettuce a little over two months total. We could care less about saving seed from Lettuce in a SHTF scenario but the opportunity presented itself so I took it and I learned a few things. How long does it take for root crops like Carrots and Beets and Cole Crops like Broccoli and Cabbage to flower out? I plan on letting a few of these "go" this fall to watch the process but would like to hear your experience.

Lady...I really got nothing on the potatoes but if it were me, I'd let your potatoes go and see what happens (I'm always game for a new garden experiment). Keep the leaves covered with hay or mulch and see if they "over winter" and start growing again in the Spring. Maybe Raven has better advice.

[ladyhk13]

Prepper good idea on the potatoes...got nothing to lose. I never got any flowers from my carrots in order to get seeds so I don't know if I'm doing something wrong? I couldn't get my purple onions to grow either. I have a few that didn't rot or anything but are very small, should I put them in sawdust or something and try to replant them in the spring?

[JustAPrepper]

Lady, Carrots are Biennials. I think that means they need two seasons to produce seed. Did you leave them in the ground long enough?

No help on the Onions. I've tried seed and two different kinds of "Starts". Seeds were a bust so far as was one of the Starts. The other grew but they were very small, about half the size of my fist. They were good and sweet, just very small. The ones that actually worked were green onion looking things from Walmart. No identification but they grew bulbs. The ones that failed were true Onion Starts from Tractor Supply. Big Fat Fail.

[ladyhk13]

Prepper, OOOOOOPPPSSSS! Well, guess that would explain the odd carrot in the garden but I still wouldn't know how to harvest the seed from them or when. I guess I'll give up on onions and just use the wild ones that grow in the yard if I have to and learn to eat as the seasons permit. I could dry them I suppose.

[ladyhk13]

Do you have any idea why this thread isn't listed with the other new posts? It looks like no one can see this unless they pull up the food section. When I click on "new posts" this doesn't show so I wonder if this is why no one else is inputting. Ideas?