** ARE YOU SAVING YOUR HEIRLOOM SEEDS? ** Youve gotten your harvest in by now, and should be enjoying some of your hard earned work; you deserve it. Veggies taste so much better out of the garden. Hopefully you have some extra to can for the Winter months, and also for the Saving of your Seeds. Saving seeds from your vegetables is not at all difficult to do. You just have to remember that only seeds from Open-Pollinated Heirloom, not hybrid, plants will produce the same crop next year. (THE SEED GUY has a great 60 Variety Heirloom Seed package, with 26,000 Non GMO Seeds, at bottom or article). EASY TO SAVE SEEDS The seeds of tomatoes, peppers, melons, and winter squash are ready for saving when the fruits are ripe and ready to eat. PEPPERS Peppers are the easiest. The seeds are mature after the peppers have changed color, indicating ripeness. Cut the peppers open, scrape out the seeds onto a plate—reserving the flesh for eating—and let the seeds dry in a non humid, shaded place, testing them occasionally until they break rather than bend. They are ready then. (Note: Dry all wet seeds on a glass or ceramic plate. Spread the seeds evenly over the surface of the plate and move around daily to ensure even drying and to keep them from clumping together. Don’t dry seeds on paper plates or paper towels—they’ll stick like glue. A food dehydrator set at 85ºF works well, but don’t dry them in a warm oven or any place the temperature exceeds 95ºF.) TOMATOES Saving tomato seeds takes a little more time, but it’s just as easy. Harvest ripe tomatoes from several different vines of the same variety, cut each across the middle, and gently squeeze the juice and seeds into a bowl. Theres a gelatinous coating around each tomato seed (This prevents the seed from sprouting inside the tomato). Remove this coating by fermenting it. This mimics the natural rotting of the fruit and has the added bonus of killing any seed borne tomato diseases that might affect next year’s crop. To ferment the seeds, add about half as much water as there are tomato seeds and juice in the bowl and stir the mixture a couple times a day for 3 or 4 days. Keep a close eye on the mixture—especially if it’s a warm area, as fermentation happens more quickly at high temperatures. As the mixture ferments, its surface will get a mold layer over it. When bubbles begin to rise to the top of the mass, or when a thick coat of mold has formed, stop the fermentation by adding enough water to double the mixture, and stir vigorously. The clean, good seeds will settle to the bottom of the bowl. Gently pour off mold, debris and any seeds that float (theyre hollow). Add more water and repeat the process until only clean seeds remain. Capture the seeds to be saved by pouring the liquid through a strainer, wipe the strainer bottom with a towel to remove as much moisture as possible, then dump the seeds onto a glass or ceramic plate to dry. Mix twice a day to ensure even drying and to prevent the seeds from clumping together. Tomato seeds will germinate unless you dry them quickly. You can speed up the drying by using a fan, but don’t put the seeds in sunlight or an oven. MELONS AND SQUASH Muskmelons, watermelons, and winter squash are pretty easy. Cut muskmelons open, scoop the seeds into a strainer, rinse, and set out to dry. Watermelons are almost as easy. Put the seeds in a strainer and add a dash of dish washing liquid to remove any sugar left on the seeds. Rinse and dry. Winter squashes need to be carefully cut to expose the seed cavity. Dont cut straight through the center of the squash—youll cut through some seeds, too. Just stick the knife in as far as necessary to cut through the flesh and move it around the walls of it. Pull the seeds from the fibers, rinse, and dry. You dont have to cut your squash before youre ready to eat it, because seeds can be saved from most winter squashes many months after harvest. SEEDS THAT NEED MORE TIME EGGPLANTS To save the seeds of your eggplants, you’ll need to wait until the fruits are far past the stage when you’d pick them for eating. Any seeds saved from table-ready eggplants will be immature and won’t be viable. If left on the vine, purple eggplant varieties will ripen to a dull brownish color, green varieties to a yellowish green, and white varieties to golden. Eggplants ready for seed saving will be dull, off-colored, hard, and sometimes shriveled. Cut the ripe eggplants in half and pull the flesh away from the seeded areas. Put the pulp in a bowl. Add water, let the good seeds settle, and then pour off the water and debris. Repeat until only clean seeds remain. Add a bit more water and pour the mix through a strainer with a mesh fine enough to catch the tiny seeds. Dry the bottom of the strainer with a towel to absorb excess moisture and dump the seeds out onto a plate to dry. CUCUMBERS After cucumbers ripen, they change color and become soft. (Remember, if you stop picking cucumbers, their vines will stop producing new fruit, so pick your fruit for seed saving toward the end of the season.) Cut the ripe cucumber in half and scrape the seeds into a bowl. To remove the seeds coating, rub them gently around the inside of a sieve while washing them or soak them in water for 2 days. Rinse and dry. SUMMER SQUASHES You’ll need to let summer squashes ripen past the tender stage, too. When you can dent the squash with a fingernail, the fruit is at the right stage for seed saving. Pick it, cut it open, scrape the seeds into a bowl, To save beans and peas, wait until the pods are ripe. When beans and peas are fully ripened they turn dry and crackly on the vine and the seeds rattle inside. This may take up to an additional month after you would normally harvest the peas or beans to eat. After you collect the pods from the plants, spread them out to dry in a well-ventilated area to dry. Let them dry at least two weeks before shelling PLANTS THAT SEED THE SECOND GROWING SEASON Carrots, Cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli, Kale and Collards are all Biennial Seed Crops, so they dont usually go to seed until the second growing season. To help this process along, leave some of Falls crop in the ground over the winter, with a heavy layer of mulch on them to protect against the cold. The next Spring, they will shoot up flower heads, which will eventually produce seeds. ** If interested in Farm Grown Fresh (2014 season) Heirloom Seeds, here at THE SEED GUY, we have a 60 Variety Heirloom Seed Package that is Non GMO, all individually packaged, and then put in a 10 x 14 silver mylar bag. There are 26,000 Seeds in the package, with a 90-93% germination rate. The package is priced reasonably at $50, and it includes 50 Veggie Seed varieties and 10 Herb varieties ** If interested, you can see the Seed varieties and purchase this Seed package on our website theseedguy/78-the-60-variety-survival-heirloom-seed-package.html We are a Trusted Seed Seller, and have over 24,000 Likes on our Facebook Page from Happy Customers and Fans. f you LIKE US on our Facebook page, you will be on our List for more great Gardening Articles, New Seed Offerings, and Straight From The Garden Recipes. Thank you and God Bless You and Your Family. https://facebook/theseedguy
Posted on: Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:43:15 +0000
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