How to Save Seeds for Next Year’s Garden

Gardening is a very fun and fulfilling activity which also saves a lot of expenses in terms of food. Saving

seeds from your garden to plant next year is an easy enough task. If you are a first timer and starting a

new garden you can easily extract seeds from the fresh vegetables or fruits you’ve bought from store.

Some plants like carrots or celery can be easily planted by helping them sprout from their root part,

after which when they flower you can collect seeds to store for next time. Here are a few steps or a few

things to keep in mind when saving seeds.

 

Choose Healthy Specimen

Remember Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection? In this case you would be the one

making that selection, choosing what characteristics of the plant, fruit, flower or vegetable you want to

encourage during your next year’s gardening. So, choose the ones that have grown well and healthy to

extract your seeds from. Also, keep in mind that what you choose need to be openly pollinated or

heirloom and not from hybrid plants.

Clean and Dry Them Up

If you have extracted seeds directly from the fruits or vegetables of the plants you want to grow you

need to first clean them up with fresh water first. This is because they would contain the juices of the

fruit on their surface. After cleaning spread them on a paper towel or even a newspaper is fine. Let them

air dry. You don’t need to worry about this step if you have extracted the seeds from flower heads.

 

Storing Your Seeds

Seeds need moisture and warmth to sprout into plants. They use all the nutrition they are provided with

in them to do that. So for a long life you need to make sure this doesn’t happen. Seeds can be

successfully stored for as long as three years and yet be viable as long as they are stored properly. You

can either use air tight containers or pack them in air tight packets. You can also use small silica gel

packets inside them to absorb any local humidity. Once you’ve finished packing up and labeling all your

seeds place them in cool and dry areas, such as your fridge if your climate is generally hot and humid.

 

Save More than You Need

You cannot predict what’s going to happen in your garden. Some of the seeds might not prove to be as

viable as you thought or a squirrel or bird might make a meal of the seeds you’ve sown. So, always save

more seeds than how many you are planning on planting next year. If all goes well and you still have

seeds left you can always store and use them for the year after that.

Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.