Seed drying

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered, but I'm new here, and more than a little overwhelmed with all the entries...

Did I read somewhere that you should NOT dry your seeds in the sun?

Dry all seeds on a screen, out of the wind and sun.
Store in leakproof containers, or glassine bags, in the
refrigerator.

Thank you. That's very helpful! Do you treat all seeds the same? I've been doing mostly heirloom tomatoes, but I was wondering if the same techniques hold true for peppers, melons, eqqplant, etc.

Sequee, I recommend fermenting the tomato seeds. The others you mentioned will be just fine if simply dried. Remember, some veggies, mainly squash-type family, will easily cross so keep that in mind.

Also best to save non-hybrid seed also (unless you just want to have some fun and see what comes from those).

I've been pretty good about keeping one set of seeds working at a time... except the "too much vino while tomato squishing" evening when I mixed the Tangelas and the Tigerellas...oh, dear!

I'm having a bit of trouble with the fermenting, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

Maybe I'm not doing enough of them at a time? They just don't seem to separate, though lord knows they sure smell "ripe" enough.

I'll keep at it, though!

Sequee - aka Never say die!

Sequee, I think Horseshoe is referring to some plants' habit of cross pollinating. That is, if you have two kinds of squash in your garden, the bees may have gone back an forth between the two and the resulting seeds will be a cross of the two plants.

Also, hybrid varieties may revert back to one of the varieties used to create the mother plant. This means the seeds you collect may not produce the same kind of plant you collected from. When collecting veggy seeds, heirlooms are best.

By the way, I've had similar problems cleaning and sorting seeds during the cocktail hour. I have a bag full of dwarf jacob's ladder and dianthus due to alcohol. LOL! I just planted the seed and it was easy enough to tell which was which. It's a lot harder to define the difference between two types of tomatoes.

Weezingreens!

Tsk!

Tee HeeTaramark

Ah, well, Taramark, none of us are perfect, and some of us get old and still don't learn! LOL! A cocktail in the evening relaxes those old tired muscles of mine after a hard day of combat gardening.... but aspirin is safer!