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seeds Seed Care Question

Txpepperguy

Txpepperguy

Seed Care Question

Howdy all. First off I apologize if this has been asked already. I travel ALOT with my job and mostly can only view the forums from my phone, which gets very hard on the eyes after a while.

I am looking at saving some of my seeds from this years harvest as well as some pods I buy at some point.

How do I care for these seeds between now and planting next year? Are there any special precautions I should take to insure viability?

Thanks in advance for the help and the understanding.


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You will probably get several different answers, but here is my method.
 
I remove the entire placenta with seeds attached, wrap in a dry paper towel, place in a envelope, and store on a high (7 ft.) shelf in my kitchen over the winter. I use a high shelf because it is usually warmer nearer the ceiling in the winter. Other than that, I do nothing special.
 
Select seeds from your best ripe fruit if possible.  Dry the seeds thoroughly.  Put up in a container (I use individual sandwich bags in sealed mason jars) and place them somewhere dry and out of sunlight.
 
I just take the seeds out, throw them in a paper towel or coffee filter and let them dry a few days before I bag 'em. Nothing special and I've gotten good germ rates so far.
 
I just dry my seeds on a paper plate,out of the way, so the wife,kids, and dogs don’t mess them up. After they are dried I store them in a small envelope squirreled away in the fridge.


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It's more than what's necessary especially for just a year's storage, but my standard is:
Remove seeds from all placental tissue.
Paper plate to dry.
Paper envelopes to store.
Envelopes all go in a Pelican case (or air-tight jar, etc.) with desiccants in a dark and cool-ish location.
 
I've had seeds go through all kinds of Hell and still pop fine much later, but you can quickly end up with a collection you'd really hate to lose and I want the healthiest seeds with the longest lifespans I can reasonably manage.
 
Oh, and this:
 
SmokenFire said:
Select seeds from your best ripe fruit if possible.  ...
Click to expand...
 

 
 
CaneDog said:
It's more than what's necessary especially for just a year's storage, but my standard is:
Remove seeds from all placental tissue.
Paper plate to dry.
Paper envelopes to store.
Envelopes all go in a Pelican case (or air-tight jar, etc.) with desiccants in a dark and cool-ish location.
 
I've had seeds go through all kinds of Hell and still pop fine much later, but you can quickly end up with a collection you'd really hate to lose and I want the healthiest seeds with the longest lifespans I can reasonably manage.
 
Oh, and this:
 
 
 
Click to expand...

I like this

Thank you for the response.


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After drying, I've started throwing some rice in with my seeds to act as a desiccant when I store them.

Does anybody else do this, or is it just an urban legend?

I've seen restaurants put rice in their salt shakers to keep them from caking up.

Another helpful hint: The craft section at WalMart has small zip-lock bags for storing beads and stuff. I've found them to be a perfect size for storing seeds. You can get around 50 or 100 bags for $1. The smaller bags are much easier to keep organized.
 
One more under-appreciated facet:

Make sure and label everything.

Write on the paper towel or coffee filter you use for drying.

And label the bags. Make sure and date it, and indicate if there is anything special about the seeds such as being a different pod shape, etc...

It sound obvious, but I've paid the price several times for being lazy and under-labeling.
 
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