As the seasons change our gardens begin to slow down, there is an important task to complete to set yourself up for next year - saving seeds. Collecting, drying, and storing seeds from your own garden is a great way to increase biological diversity and save money year after year. The work included in this process varies based on the individual species life cycles. For some plants, including a lot of flowering and fruiting plants, have a fairly simple life cycle and will produce seeds annually. Other plants, especially root vegetables like beets and carrots, need extended time to produce seeds, if they do at all (looking at you potatoes).
For beginner gardeners and seed savers, common annual and perennial flowers and fruiting plants are great to begin with. Most flowers will produce seeds once their blooming period ends, spring-blooming plants will produce seeds in early summer, while summer-blooming plants produce seeds in the fall, so you may need to collect seeds earlier in the year than in the fall. Seeds' sizes, shapes, and pods differ as widely as the leaves and flowers they will eventually produce.
A good mostly universal rule of thumb, though is to wait until the flowers have faded, turned brown, and dried up or to look for bulbous seed pods to form and then dry out. Some common annual flowers that have easy seeds to gather include marigolds, zinnias, and snapdragons. Some native perennial seeds that are fairly easy to gather include red columbine (spring blooming), coneflowers, sunflowers, and milkweed. For the food gardeners, the seeds you save are typically contained inside the fruit they produce. Some good beginner seeds to save include peppers, beans, and squash. Once seeds are cleaned and dried they should be stored in cool dry spaces to keep the viable so they will sprout in the spring.
For more guidance on saving vegetable seeds, Seed Savers Exchange has a large number of growing guides that include information about how to plant, grow, harvest, and save the plant's seeds. It is listed on our Seed Library webpage along with many other resources related to gardening.
Seed saving also plays a vital role in our seed library, as "returning" seeds to the library include seeds you've gathered and dried. We are hosting two seed swaps to encourage seed saving and grow the seed library; both are open to the public to participate. House plant propagations are also welcome at the swap.
University of Michigan-Flint
0 Comments.