Gardening Sweet Spots
By Donna Hessel
It’s time again to put the gardens to bed for winter. But before you cut everything down, take a look at plants that have seeds you might want to save for next year’s garden.
Which Seeds to Collect
Species and open-pollinated plants (pollinated by wind, insects or self-pollinated) are the seeds you want to save. If your plants were listed as an F1 hybrid on the plant tag or packet, the plants won’t produce seeds that come true or grow plants that look like the parent plant. If your garden included any of these, look for seedheads: cilantro, dill, coneflower, four o’clock, larkspur, love-in-a-mist, marigold, poppy, sunflower, sweet pea and zinnia. Look for seeds on seed pods that form on plants such as sweet pea, larkspur and love-in-a-mist. On zinnia and marigold, seeds form just below the bloom and you’ll have to remove flower parts to find them.
Choose seeds from the healthiest plants, but wait to collect them until the seeds have fully matured. Marigold seeds, for example, need time to mature before they can be harvested. Even though the bloom is obviously finished, a marigold flower needs to be brown and shriveled before the seeds are ripe enough to harvest. Use scissors or clippers to make a clean and quick cut of seedheads from large flowers. Put them in a plastic storage bag or small container to hold for cleaning. For plants with small seeds like love-in-a-mist, a bowl or jar is best for collecting the seeds. If seed pods are papery or rattle when the pod is shaken, the seeds are ready for harvesting. Look for sheaths that break open and reveal brown-black seeds inside.
If you grew sunflowers and the birds or squirrels have not already discovered the seeds, you can protect them until they are ready to harvest by tying a paper bag over the flower. Check in a week or so and if they are ready, cut the flower head off the stem and scrape the seeds into the bag.
Cleaning and Drying Your Seeds
Some seeds require only minimal cleaning while others seeds have chaff or are in fleshy fruit. It’s important to clean off those seeds so they will germinate properly. A simple way to separate chaff from seeds is to make a deep crease down the center of a piece of paper. Place the unclean seeds in the center, tilt the paper at a slight angle and slowly tap the contents out of the folded paper. The contents will separate, with the heavier items moving down the crease faster than the lighter items. If the chaff and the seeds are close in weight the best thing to do is to find a screen that allows the seeds to fall through but traps larger pieces of debris; an old tea strainer or colander works well.
Seeds in pods can be placed in a bag and crushed with a rolling pin. To clean seeds from fleshy fruits, such as tomatoes, scoop out the contents and soak them in water. Once cleaned, remove the seeds from the water and dry them on a paper towel. Spread the seeds on newspapers, in a cardboard box, or in an old telephone directory, and allow them to dry between one and three weeks.
I thought this report on how a commercial company cleans seeds was interesting. My sister’s garden club took a field trip to Roundstone Native Seed Company in Upton, Kentucky. She reported that the company started small, but now they grow, collect, clean and sell about 450 species of Kentucky native plant seeds. Customers can buy a packet, order a small amount for a personal garden, or thousands of pounds to cover acres. They custom-design seed mixes to meet the customer’s needs and environment. They do installations from 10 acres up to thousands of acres and provide the expertise to get and keep the natives established. They cut some seed heads off plants mechanically, but many seeds are also picked by hand. Imagine having to keep track of when seeds are ripe for that many kinds of plants. The guide said for one kind, its seeds are ripe one day and fall to the ground the next day!
One unbelievable thing was where orders are filled. The very large room is cleaned after each order, so nobody accidentally gets the wrong seeds in their order. One huge, long building holds one continuous cleaning machine. Starting at one end of the building, the picked seed mixed with lots of unwanted leaves etc. goes up a belt, through a cleaning machine, is fed into the next upward belt, etc. This machine zig-zags up and down through the entire length of the building. We examined some very small seed in a barrel at the end, and it was immaculately clean and each seed was separated.
Storing Your Seeds
Seeds need to be dry of excess moisture so they don’t rot and can be held in a dormant state until you are ready to replant them. Place the seeds in an envelope or paper bag and seal them in plastic containers or glass jars. If you aren’t sure they are totally dry, skip the airtight container. Be sure to label the bags of seeds with its name and year collected. Store the seed in a cool, dry place, such as a corner shelf in the garage, basement, closet or in the back of a refrigerator. The ideal temperature for storing seeds is between 32°F and 50°F.
Seed Libraries
If you missed out on collecting seeds from your own plants this year, you may be able to obtain some from a local seed library. Seed libraries were started around 1999 with the mission of making seeds available to the public for personal gardens. Near us, the Cleveland Seed Bank partners with seven public library systems in Northeast Ohio to host 20 seed libraries spanning Cuyahoga, Lorain and Lake Counties. Each location offers a selection of 20 different varieties of organic, open-pollinated, non-GMO vegetable, herb and edible flower seeds. The libraries were started because in the last century or so, the world has lost 75% of its edible plant varieties. This loss in biodiversity threatens our food and nutrition security. To find a seed library near you, visit “The Hummingbird Project” at hummingbirdproject.org/seed-libraries.
Article Sources:
libguides.nybg.org/collectingstoringseeds
Garden Gate Online Newsletter 8-25-22
“The Hummingbird Project” – hummingbirdproject.org/seed-libraries
Photos courtesy pexels.com
