Adventures in Seed Saving!

Red Lettuce, Green Lettuce,
Red Bunching Onions, and Chives

There are two things I love most: Volunteer plants and Free Seeds!  Yes, yes, seeds are not very expensive, a two dollar packet of seeds will probably not break the bank.  However, I don't ever want just one kind of seed.   I want a whole variety of seeds.  That $2 can quickly turn into $20.

So, harvesting your own seeds can save money.  Additionally, you'll find yourself with way too many seeds, so sharing is a must!  Even better, swapping seeds with another enthusiast is a great way to gather a variety of seeds.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Forget about saving hybrid or GMO-type seeds.  The following crop will be unreliable.
2. Conducting a quick Internet search before you start collecting may save you loads of time and effort-- just to make sure you are not wasting time.  For example, some plants like parsley take two years before seeds will emerge.  Others, like tomatoes may need a few of extra steps before the seeds will be ready to store.
3. Some seeds are edible, so if you get more than you'd ever plant, consider eating them.  (Think winter squash)
4. Seeds will fall off the plant, into your garden, and will grow.  Remember, that when you let your plants go to seed, they have mechanisms built in to spread those seeds and create new plants.  So, if you let a plant go to seed, you will inevitably get seeds in your soil.  They may start growing! If you are not a fan of volunteer plants, you may have a bit more weeding to do.  (Those seedlings are usually edible, at least).

Here are a few examples of seeds I have successfully saved and re-grown:

Chives:  

I love growing chives.  They are so easy to grow, their flowers are tasty, and it so easy to collect seeds.  Another way to propagate chives is by division.  Back to the seeds.  The seeds come from the light purple flowers that frequently emerge from the plant.  Just a few flowers will give you plenty of seeds, so feel free to eat most of the flowers! You can see my post about making chive blossom vinegar here.  Leave the flowers on the chive plant until they look dry and dead.  When the seeds are ready for harvesting, you will see them emerging from the dead flowers.  They are black and nugget like and the size of a pencil tip (smaller than a peppercorn, but still large enough to pick up with your fingers).  Cut off the dead bloom with as little movement as possible (the seeds will start falling out with movement) and tap the dead flower over a sheet of paper, a bowl, etc.  You may use your fingers to loosen the seeds.  At this point, I like to place the seeds out in the sun or at least on the counter for a day or two to let any little bugs escape and to make sure seeds are completely dry.  The seeds are ready for storage.  I place them in mini zip close bags- they kind meant for pills.  Use them in the next year.

Bunching Onion/Scallions/Green Onions: 

Same directions as the chives, however, the blossoms are not delightful to eat.  The seed collecting procedure is the same.

Lettuce:  

Anyone who has ever grown lettuce knows that tell tale sign of the lettuce bolting.  Bolting is the term used to describe a plant that starts to shoot out a tall stalk and produce flowers.  It happens particularly when your spring plants start to feel the summer heat.  If you want to eat this plant for dinner, you had better harvest asap because bolting is detrimental to the taste of the plant.  On the other hand, if you want to collect the seeds, let that lettuce bolt away.  It will be ugly.  The bolting is ugly, the flowers are ugly.  Deal with it if you want the seeds.  Let that plant bolt.  Let the flowers die.  You will see cottony looking flowers as the flower dries out.  You can pinch the feathery flowers off and you will see little oblong shaped dark brown things at the end of the feathery petals.  Those are the seeds.  Let those seeds dry out a bit, try to remove as much of the feathery petals as possible and bag those seeds.  I have a volunteer green leaf lettuce making its presence known as I type.

Parsley:  

Parsley is much like lettuce and chives.  The plant will shoot out flowers.  You let them die on the plant, carefully remove the flower, and tap out the seeds.  Remember, though, parsley will not set seeds until its second year in the garden.  They will give you so many seeds, you will not know what to do.  I have had so many volunteer parsley plants cropping up in crazy places in my garden.  

Self Watering Planter from a Brita Pitcher

I love self watering planters; they are both brilliant and forgiving.  There are so many tutorials out there about constructing your own self watering planter.  In the most basic form, there is a water basin, a contained small area of soil touching down into the water basin, and an upper basin holding all the soil and plants.  A Brita, or any water filter type pitcher, has a lower basin (where all the filtered water goes), an upper basin where the faucet water goes, and a cylinder to hold the filter that reaches from the upper chamber to the lower.  Exact same idea as a self watering planter.

I thought I'd give it a try as a mini kitchen garden.  I put some decorative rocks in the lower chamber so my planter would have a lower center of gravity and be less likely to tip over.  Then I placed a square of old t-shirt (anything that allows water through but stops all the dirt from coming out the bottom will work) over the grate at the bottom of the cylinder.  Filled the top chamber with soil and potted a few lettuce seedlings.  Then a watered a bit on the top of the soil to get it going and filled the bottom chamber with water.  The water level has to be fairly high because it must be filled a few inches above the cylinder. 

That was it.  All I had to do was maintain the water level above the cylinder.  Full Disclosure: The water did get murky.  I suppose one could lift of the plant part and fill the bottom with fresh water from time to time to have a more pleasant looking plant.  But the main point is that the pitcher totally worked!  Perfectly watered lettuce up until the time I ate it for dinner.

Currently, I have it next to a strawberry plant outside that is sending out runners.  The runner roots are already coming out the bottom.  So very easy, and a great way to up-cycle those old filter pitchers!