Gardeners who preserve their own vegetable seeds not only cut down on their annual gardening expenditures but also see their plants improve in health, vitality, and yield with each passing season.
Starting a garden can be costly, what with having to buy new seed or transplants every spring. But not if you harvest your crops, dry the seeds, and plant them the following year.
And there’s nothing quite like watching your plants sprout and flourish from tiny little seeds! So how to keep you your vegetable seeds for the next year’s crops?
Selecting heritage (open-pollinated) plant varieties is crucial for successful seed saving. Unlike hybrid seeds, those produced from open-pollinated plants produce the same harvest year after year.
As a result, you can expect identical results every time you sow seed saved from these plants. Tomatoes, peppers, beans, onions, peas, maize, pumpkins, etc., all come in a dizzying array of open-pollinated kinds.
However, it is essential to be aware that if you grow more than one variety of an heirloom food plant, the plants can cross to generate a new plant. Because of this, it’s recommended that, if you plant more than one type, you separate off one plant to save its seeds.
