Project Update 2.2 - Seed Saving!

Saving seeds is one of my favourite parts about gardening. So much possibility and so much room to fuck it all up. High stakes gardening and what not, since your seed saving skills may determine what you have to plant next season. Some seeds are super easy to save, and others have all kinds of stratification and pre-treatment requirements. It's a good idea to familiarize yourself with common seed saving terms before getting started.

The first thing to do is establish from which fruit or plant you would like to save seeds. You should choose based on desired traits and characteristics, such as flavor, colour, size, disease resisitance and time to maturity. Usually, you will have to grow your produce for more time and to a larger size than normal. Culinary ripeness (good for eating) is usually not considered physiologically ripe (viable seeds produced). For example, I harvest my french round squash at 3"-4" for eating, but leave the seed saving squash on the plant for an extra couple of months, until it reaches 6"-8", forms a hard outer shell and turns a yellow-ish colour.

French round squash at edible size/maturity.

6 lb. squash for seed saving.

Squash guts and seeds.

Fun with squash!

Sometimes you'll get a seed surprise, and a couple of them will have started to germinate before you even open the squash.

Seed surprise! These three started germinating inside the squash.

To save squash seeds (or any cucurbit), you first need to gut your squash, and separate all the flesh and pulp from the seeds. If any seeds are small, thin, or flimsy discard them right away, as they probably won't be viable anyway. Rinse your seeds in cold water to get all the slime and gunk off, pat them dry and then place them on paper towel in a single layer to dry out completely for a week or so. I usually flip mine after a couple of days do encourage even drying. Once your babies are thoroughly dried, store them in a small ziploc or glass jar and be sure to label them with the variety and seed saving date. Bam. It's that easy.

When saving tomato seeds, I prefer to undertake the process when I am already canning or making tomato sauce, since those processes already require separating the seeds (and skins) from the flesh, and I don't like to waste anything.

Tomatoes prepped for sauce: blanched, peeled,

seeds removed and set aside.

Tomato seeds need to ferment a bit, so I put the pulpy seeds into shot glasses with a few drops of water and loosely cover them with paper towel to keep fruit flies out.

Flamme and Mystery Yellow tomato seeds.

After a few days some of the water will have evaporated and the pulpy casing around the seeds should be fermented and more thick. Dump the mess in a sieve (make sure the holes are more fine than your seeds!) and run cool water over it and give the goo a little rub. The mess should wash away easily, and you will be left with just the seeds. Spread these out on a paper towel, and once they are completely dry, bag 'em and tag 'em.

*Note about saving tomato seeds: The tomatoes I grow are all open pollinated (OP) heirlooms, so there is a high likelihood of cross-pollination. This means that plants I grow from my saved seeds, with likely not be true to type, and instead create some new kind of heirloom hybrid tomato. I don't mind, because this is all one big experiment for me and I like the idea of making brand new cultivars, but if you want to keep your seeds true to type, tie paper bags over the flowers you want to isolate. Tomatoes are largely self fertile, so the fruits should still develop, but the flowers won't have an opportunity to be cross polinated by insects and the next generation of plants should be true to type.

Glossary of Gardening Terms

acid - having a pH of less that 7

alkaline - having a pH of more than 7

annual - A plant that completes its life cycle in one year or less.

biennial - A plant that lives for up to two years under outdoor conditions, flowers and produces seed the second year.

bolt - When a plant flowers prematurely.

characteristics - General features caused by unidentified complexes of genes including but not limited to freeze tolerance, cold tolerance, regional adaptability, winter hardiness, early maturation, and flavor.

cross-pollination - When pollen is exchanged between different flowers from the same or different plants.

cultivar -  A horticultural variety or strain that originated and has persisted under human cultivation.

damping off - Over watering seedlings promotes the growth of mildew that causes seedlings to keel over with shriveled stems. The most common disease of greenhouse seedlings, it is aggravated by extreme swings in temperature like warm days and cold nights. The best prevention is to water in mid-morning and to allow the soil surface to dry out between waterings.

deciduous - A plant that produces fresh leaves annually (and sheds old leaves)

determinate/indeterminate - Determinates flower once or twice a growing period, usually early in the season, and yield mature harvests all at one time. Indeterminate plants flower and fruit continuously throughout the growing season.

dormancy - A period of low or absent plant growth

hardening off - A process of helping plants that have been raised under cover to adapt to cooler outdoor conditions and direct sun. Gradually introducing greenhouse plants to outside conditions for one to two weeks before planting in the ground is one recipe for hardening-off.

heirloom - Time-tested, open-pollinated varieties of primarily European descent, that have been passed down for at least three generations. For many reasons, including flavor, vigor, local hardiness and dependability, these have become favorites. Often, heirloom seeds are the repository of unusual genes that can help to preserve genetic diversity.

epiphyte - A plant that has aerial roots, used to grip trees. (ex: some ferns, moss and orchids)

F1 hybrid - The "F" in F1 hybrid stands for filial or offspring. F1 means the first generation offspring after cross-pollination. The majority of F1 hybrids are sterile or produce offspring unlike themselves. See "hybrid."

gound cover - Carpeting species that rapidly cover bare ground.

hybrid - Varieties resulting from natural or artificial pollination between genetically distinct parents. Commercially, the parents used to produce hybrids are usually inbred for specific characteristics.

hydroponics - Method of growing plants in a liquid culture

inbreeding depression - A loss of vigor because of inbreeding. Inbreeding is the result of self-pollination or pollination between two close relatives.

insect pollination - Pollen is carried from one flower to another by insects.

loam - Fertile soil that retains moisture while remaining well-drained

monecious - A species is monecious if it produces single plants with separate male flowers and female flowers on the same plant. (ex: french round squash)

mulch - Organic matter placed over the soul to conserve moisture and keep frost from the roots and weed growth.

mutation -  Abrupt change in plant’s habit

neutral - Having a pH of 7

offsetting - A plant that produces miniature replicas of itself, usually around its base (ex: artichoke)

open-pollinated - Open-pollinated varieties are stable varieties resulting from the pollination between the same or genetically similar parents. Not hybrid.

organic - A substance produced by plants or animals via natural means

ovary - The female part of a flower that contains the ovules. Fertilized ovules develop into mature seeds.

perennial - Plant that lives for at least three seasons.

perfect flowers - Individual flowers that contain both stamens and pistils.

Perlite -Sterile granular form of aluminum silicate used in composts.

pH - Scale by which acidity or alkalinity of soil is measured.

pistil - The female reproductive organ in a flower made up of the stigma, style, and ovary.

pollen - Equivalent of sperm in plants. Pollen grain fertilizes plant ovules.

pollination - The process of sexual fertilization in plants. The male chromosomes contained in pollen are combined with the female chromosomes contained in the ovules.

recessive trait - The variation of a specific, identifiable gene that results in observ able traits only if the dominant trait is not present. For example, wrinkled pea seeds result only in varieties where the dominant smooth-seed trait is missing.

rogue - The process of removing or destroying plants with unwanted characteristics or traits.

scarification - To abrade, scratch, or modify the surface for increasing water absorption.

selection - The process of saving the seeds from plants that exhibit desirable charac teristics and traits. To identify desirable characteristics, plant the same variety in different environmental conditions, or plant different varieties in the same environ mental conditions.

self-pollination - When pollination takes place within a single flower, usually before it opens. Other flowers or plants are not needed. Self-pollinating flowers are called "perfect flowers" because they contain the stamens that produce pollen and the pistil that receives the pollen. Isolation distance to prevent cross-pollination is not necessary unless insects are known to invade the flowers before pollination is complete.

stamen - A flower's male reproductive organ consisting of the filament, anther, and pollen.

stigma - The opening in the pistil through which the pollen passes to the ovary. 

style - Contains the pollen tube between the stigma and the ovary through which the pollen is carried.

sucker - shoot that grows from the rootstock (or from the crotch between the stem and a branch on a tomato plant).

traditional/native - Open-pollinated varieties that have evolved through centuries of growing by native/indigenous peoples of the world. They are often drought and pest resistant, hardy and nutritious and are still cultivated around the world.

trait - A specific feature traced to an identifiable gene or group of genes. Pea traits traceable to single genes include vine growth (bush or tall), seed texture (smooth or wrinkled) and disease resistance (fusarium, enation mosaic, and powdery mildew).

untreated seeds - Have not been coated with fungicides, herbicides, fertilizers or growth hormones.

viable - A viable seed is one that will germinate and produce a vigorous plant. Seeds must not be harvested before they have matured enough to be viable. There is wide variation in the point of maturity at which a seed can be harvested and still be viable.

vigor - Strong, vibrant germination and growth. A desirable characteristic.

wind pollination - When pollen is carried from one flower to another by the wind.

Prepping the Cold Season Garden

The weather is changing; I can smell it. And even though my summer crops are still producing in our temperate Bay Area climate, it is time to look ahead to what is next.

By the time Labour Day rolled around this year, I had already planned out the winter garden. This was a first for me and made infinitely easier by the Jamilah's Garden Binder I started keeping this year. I've pulled together information on companion planting, seed starting, tips for care and recipes, along with a bunch of copies of a skeleton diagram of the garden I drew out.

Keeping all of this information in one place has been really valuable, in that I have the answers to most of my questions already at my fingertips. Planning this way also lets me keep the diagrams of past gardens to reference what worked and what didn't, without relying entirely on my decidedly shoddy memory.

Blank garden planning diagram.

Summer 2011 Plan.

Planned Winter 2011/12 Garden.

The first item on my list of 'crap to do that isn't that exciting but needs to be done anyway', is pulling plants that are done for the season, and tilling the soil mixing in lots of organic matter. I've got half of the garden dug up now, but I'll have to wait a bit on doing the other side because the tomatoes are still doing their thing. We had a powdery mildew problem late in the growing season with our french round squash that luckily didn't spread to any of the other plants.

French round squash pumpkin, and the beginnings of

our powdery mildew issue.

I've left one of the plants in the ground as long as I can, because I am growing a couple of squash to pumpkin size to harvest their seeds for next year. Alas, I can't wait any longer, as that area needs to be prepped asap for the garlic to be planted. That (and carving said 'pumpkin') will be a project for this weekend. I will be watering down the entire area with neem oil, to try to kill any powdery mildew spores that would likely overwinter in the soil in our climate. Hopefully the garlic will be able to be planted before the end of the month.

Since I've already planned the garden, I was able to start a lot of my cold season seeds last week! We've got golden and chioggia beets, chinese kale, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and acorn and butternut squash all sprouting in our craft room.

Grow baby, grow!

The most important part about germinating seeds is getting the right temperature and moisture level, although light (or dark) and oxygen are also necessary. I manage my seed starting environment by putting my peat pots inside a mail bin, and then putting that mail bin inside a white garbage bag with the end open. Most of the seeds I grow don't require light until they have sprouted (although some do), but I do provide them with light right off the bat because I find it increases the humidity in the bin, and the light will be available the second the seeds have sprouted. So sue me.

Acorn squash seedlings.

Once these babies have a few true leaves, I'll start the hardening off process and get them in the ground! It's been awhile since I got my hands dirty, so I am rather looking forward to it.