The seed saving course I went on last weekend was excellent. It was run by Real Seeds on their farm in Wales. They have a fascinating place producing all their power with solar panels, photo-voltaic cells and a windmill. There are composting toilets as well as an ordinary flush one and their water comes from a spring.
I learned lots of new techniques and found out a few things I had being doing wrong. It was really valuable to try all the practical aspects and knowing the science behind it all clarified quite a few things.
I've read books about it, but actually doing the work and getting tips on how do do things better is ideal.
One of the most useful things I came away with was that seeds that are just air dried should be stored in paper bags or something porous as they are still "breathing", but will still keep in good condition for at least a year if kept in a dry, cool dark place. Also, it is better to dry them in an airy place out of direct sunlight instead of cooking them on the windowsill - which I have done in the past.
The best way to keep seeds is to dehydrate them before storage by using a greater quantity of rice than seed. The rice is heated in the oven to dry it thoroughly, cooled in an air-tight container and when cold, the seed is placed in this container in porous packets, sealed and left for a week. The packets should then be stored in air tight containers - jam jars are better than plastic tubs, again in a cool dark place.
The Real Seeds web site has all the details for seed saving.
We also did wet and dry seed extraction, pollination, isolation, threshing and winnowing. Their ducks got a bit excited with the winnowing as they thought the buckets had food in for them.
A most enjoyable weekend, and I can thoroughly recommend it.
SEED SAVING
That sounds a fascinating weekend Pat. I'm certainly not confident with saving seeds so it would do me good! I shall have to make to with looking at their website. Thanks for all the info
Thanks for the info Pat! As I'm starting to pick some seed a bit of advice really comes in handy! I don't have much seed saving experience - I've only been picking seed for the past two years .... so I'm going to check out that website!
Another interesting bit of information from the course - which you probably know anyway, is that bought tomato seeds have been treated with acid to burn off the hairy covering so they pass through the packing machinery without sticking. So most commercial tomato seeds are smooth whereas your own saved ones are furry.
Also, quite a few seeds that are labelled F1 aren't really hybrids at all, but they can charge more for fewer seeds, and people won't try to save their own if they think they are F1s.
I've picked a Sigmadew cucumber which I have saved for seeds today. Cucumbers are ready to extract the seeds when they are really large and when they have changed colour, green ones go more yellow, and yellow ones turn almost white. Sigmadew is a lovely pale lemon yellow and has a good flavour, so it is worth saving the seeds. If I'm successful I'll put some in the next R.R - if we have one.
Sounds really good course.I was impressed with their website as they shared their knowledge on there, I bought some seeds from them this summer and will be attempting to save seeds from these plants, that means that I can buy some different ones from them next year.
Hi Pat.
Very interesting and useful, don`t think they have courses like that one here.
Will definitely try the dehydrate them in rice.
Hm.. about the F1, I bought some sunflowers with the F1 mark. Had no idea what is was, just sounded interesting. I wonder if it is a hybrid or not? Will have to google a bit :o)
Pat, one thing I'm never sure about, and I'm sure that we've spoken about it on here before somewhere is about what to put seeds into.Up till now I've alway s made my own seed packets (using Daves seed templates), as I always thought that you had to store them in something porous such as paper, and have spent hours printing, cutting ,folding and sticking them...but then I noticed that people were using these little plastic bags that zip-lock accross the top, so this year I bought a load of them.Are they safe to store them in here?
The seeds that I've put in so far seem o.k. only one lot released moisture into the bag, so I emptied them out , dried them out a bit more and restored them.I must admit, it's saved a lot of time, and it's easier to see how much seed i have left in there at a glance, but I'm still not totally convinced that they'll be o.k. in there.
The other thing I'm never sure about when saving seeds, especially veg, is which will come true, and which will cross-breed, especially things like toms. I have some different courgettes and pumpkins up on the allotment that I bought from them, which I'm now letting them grow so's I can harvest the seeds, but I haven't isolated any of the flowers at all, so I'm guessing that they could turn out to be anything?
Sue, On the course they said that seeds stayed in better condition if they were stored in paper envelopes particularly if they have just been dried naturally. If they have been dehydrated they recommend putting them in the paper envelopes in an air-tight container as dehydration puts them into dormancy and they don't need to "breathe". I haven't had any problems in the past with keeping seeds in the little plastic sealed bags so long as they were nice and dry first, but I suppose they won't stay viable as long as the ones kept in the ideal conditions they outline.
Tomatoes don't usually cross pollinate except for the beefsteak ones, and even they don't always produce the open flowers capable of cross pollination. The courgettes will cross with other courgettes and the squashes and pumpkins will cross. To keep a pure variety if you are growing different types you have to go out in the evening and select a female and male flower which are just showing orange on the tips but which have not opened. You put a small elastic band round the tip of the petals a few times so that it won't open. The next morning you break off the male flower and strip off its petals, take it to the female flower and making sure no bees are nearby take the band off the female carefully so as not to tear its petals and rub the pollen thoroughly all over the stigma of the female flower, going around the base and down the sides too. The rubber band is then put back on the female flower carefully so no insects can get in. This is kept on for a few more days and then can be taken off. Tie some coloured thread round the stem so you know which one you are saving. Then let it get very ripe and extract and process the seeds. There are so many seeds you don't have to do it every year.
Peas don't usually cross pollinate, but don't grow them next to another variety just to make sure. Beans can cross, so if you want to save them only grow one variety and hope the bees don't go on your neighbour's if they are different. You can isolate peppers or aubergines with a cage made from enviro-mesh to keep the bees off, as they are self-fertile but will cross with other varieties if they get the chance, just give the flower a gentle tap to trigger the pollen.
The wind pollinated ones are the most difficult to isolate, and some need to be grown in very large numbers to keep good genetic diversity. I've lots of notes on everything, but the main thing apart from keeping the variety pure is to select and mark the best plants and only keep the biggest fattest seeds from these. Don't save seeds from the first ones to run to seed in lettuce or brassicas as you will encourage that trait.
Hope that is useful.
Cheers Pat, explains a lot there, I did go back to check out their web-site again, spotted a few things that I might like to purchase for next year at the same time...
Never even thought about the first running to seed being the baddies....but it makes sense .