Seed saving
K
eeping seeds has been done by humans since prehistoric times. At one time based on the necessity of staying alive, what has been learned through millennia has been passed down to us, and today seed collection in Canada is more of a challenge or interest than anything else. Here’s how you can satisfy the challenge for your own garden. Most seeds are collected from annuals, which includes most vegetables and a number of flowers, but you can also collect seed from biennials (like carrots) and perennials as well. Heirloom, open pollinated and F1 All heirloom varieties are open pollinated, but not all open pollinated varieties are heirloom. In some countries, heirloom has a particular definition of how old an open-pollinated plant is, but in Canada there isn’t any such definition. Fifty years is a popular cutoff point. Open-pollinated seeds tend to “come true” to the parents. F1 seeds are unlikely to do so, and they may not be capable of growing a plant at all. You shouldn’t bother collecting seeds from F1 plants; if you do, be prepared for whatever surprise greets you when the seeds grow. Dry collection Let’s start out easy with dry collection of seeds. These are seeds you 28 • 2021
Once these poppy seed heads are a little drier you can break them to get the seeds out.
Photo by Dominicus Johannes Bergsma.
Allium tuberosum seeds are easy to collect when they dry out.
Photo by Tony Hisgett
Photo by Agnieszka Kwiecie
By Shauna Dobbie
Echinacea seeds can be pulled from the dry seed heads but use gloves!
collect from plants at the end of their season, when the flowers and fruits are dried. You can cut or snap off the seed heads of these plants and put them into a paper bag. For some plants, like calendula, it will be easier to just pull off the seeds. Make sure you write on the bag which exact plant you have collected the seed from. With a bag of dried seed heads, give them a good shake to get the seeds separated. You can throw out the chaff that Issue 4
was around the seeds. If you don’t, it doesn’t really matter. Some chaff won’t stop the seeds from growing next year. You can dry seeds further indoors on mesh or newspaper. When they are completely dry, put them into your preferred storage container: envelopes, jars or zippered baggies. Write on the container what kind of seed it is. Collect seeds on a dry day after a couple of days without rain. You can collect seeds as long as they are still on the plant, but for best success you should do it as soon as they’re ready, so the plant doesn’t release them. Some plants, like impatiens, explode the seed head with a bit of force; if you’re too late, the seeds could be all over your garden. Collect seeds throughout the growing season. Wet method You can collect the seeds from some fruits and vegetables while still in a wet state. Tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, zucchini and strawberries are all collected this way. Let the plant become over-ripe on the vine. Pick it, cut open the fruit and scoop the seeds and flesh out. (With strawberries, slice the seeds off the fruit.) With some vegetables, like eggplants and pumpkins, you can just wash the sticky stuff off the seeds and spread them out on a screen or some newspalocalgardener.net
