Sunday, November 4, 2012

How to Save Seeds



My boyfriend fell in love with these peppers I brought home from the farm. He chopped them up to put on pizzas, mixed them in with his scrambled eggs and more than once accidentally got juice in his eye. I am less of a spicy food fan, but I did add two to some vegetarian chili I made and they definitely added a great flavor. I am unsure what kind of pepper they are, if anyone recognizes them please let me know in the comments!



I decided to save the seeds from some of the peppers to plant in our own garden next year. I've never saved seeds before so I read up online first to see how it was done. After looking at a few tutorials I got started!

First I washed the peppers and dried them.



Next I cut them open and scraped out the seeds. There were a ton!



I put them on a plate and stuck them on a high shelf in the pantry to dry.
After a few days I went in and moved them around on the plate to make sure that they were getting equally dried and not stuck together. 

Let them dry for a few weeks and then figure out your storage method. I read a lot of different tutorials and some say to store them just in paper packets for air flow, while others say to use mason jars that you can seal. Others say use plastic tubs or bags. All the site agree on keeping them in a cool, dry place to make sure they last long. 
I'm going to be keeping them in paper envelopes inside a closeable glass jar. I made the paper envelopes at home rather than buying new ones, check out the tutorial here!


I'm brand new to seed saving so please share your experiences in the comments! Any specific advice for hot pepper seed storage?



Find more fun gardening projects here! 

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4 comments:

  1. Hi Eliza
    I grew my green beans and kale last summer from seeds I saved from the previous year. It was a successful experiment so this year I saved seeds from my brandywine tomatoes, scarlet runner beans and some of the greens from my mesclun mix. The tomatoes seeds were a little more complicated than the other seeds I've saved. You have to let tomato seeds ferment and grow mold for a few days to remove a coating that's on them. I'm excited to plant them and see if they grow!

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    Replies

    1. How did you collect the seeds from the kale? Next year I plan to do the tomatoes as well. They are such a great crop but so fickle!

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  2. Hi Eliza,
    Thanks for visiting my blog and letting me know about yours! I love your pictures for this seed-saving post. I never got around to saving the seeds from my garden this year, but I'd like to give it a try with next year's harvest :)

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  3. Thank you for your submission on Nourishing Treasures' Make Your Own! Monday link-up.

    Check back tomorrow when the new link-up is running to see if you were one of the featured posts! :)

    ReplyDelete

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