Elementary Seed Saving

I’m taking some baby steps toward seed saving this year. Most of my plants are from heritage varieties, not hybrids, so I’m certain if I plant the seeds they will come up as the same plants I harvested them from. I also don’t plant many varieties of things, so there’s no room for cross-polination.

My squash are too close together, so it won’t work for them, and the same goes for the tomatoes, I’m afraid. That’s a shame, because those seeds are so easy to harvest! I will let a few zapallitos get fully mature and harvest seed from them, hoping the next-door-neighbor zucchini don’t interfere. We’ll call that an experiment.

The easiest place to start seemed to be with greens. My mizuna and arugula bolted early, so I just let them go to seed. Since the only seeds I’ve ever saved before were the annual marigold seeds my mother saved in envelopes, I was surprised by the pods.

I expected flowers tight with seeds, like a sunflower or cone flower. The greens, however, produced these lovely pods that rattle when dry. In late June I was able to harvest the mizuna. Last week I pulled up the arugula plants and separated the seed, sort of like shelling peas or beans, saving the copious quantity of seed in blank envelopes I bought from Fedco Seeds with my seed order in the spring.

I already sprinkled some mizuna seed back in the raised bed where I harvested them. They came up so thick I couldn’t get a reasonable number of plants! It was a total success, and made me think there’s something to this– and I might be able to cut down the seed order over time.

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