Harvesting

Harvesting your plants for seeds depends on the type of plant. There are 2 types: wet seeds which are seeds within a fruit such as tomatoes or squash or dry seeds such as carrots or sunflower.

For dry seeds simply hang the plant upside down in a cool, dark place until dry then thresh the seeds by placing the plant in a paper bag and stepping on it until the seed pods separate from the plant.

To winnow dry seeds, meaning separating chaff from seed, dump the seed from container to container while sitting in front of a large fan. All the chaff will be blown away leaving the seed.

Dry seeds can also be winnowed by pushing seed and chaff through a fine-mesh screen. Three screens of successively smaller mesh seem to work the best. The goal is to push the seed through the screens leaving the chaff behind.

Wet seeds must be picked out of the fruit and placed on a screen to dry in a cool, dark place. When do you know they are dry? Hit one with a hammer and if it shatters it is dry...

Lastly it would be wise to conduct a germination test. You can either seed a packet of seeds out to be tested in a lab or you can plant several yourself and count the actual per cent of germination.

If you like this website, consider downloading this free toolbar for your browser.

Previously I featured a conduit toolbar with radio for download but replaced it with the Alexa toolbar featuring website anaysis tools along with real-time related links to facilitate searching. Alexa is owned by Amazon and will not embed spyware into their toolbar. It's safe and it's free!

Download