seeds Seed Collecting

PodHopper

PodHopper

I'm new to the pepper scene.  First year grower and had about 7 or 8 plants this season (probably considered newbie varieties.) Thatblondguy is graciously sending me some seeds for being a newbie, which I'm super pumped about!  I want to collect seeds, but am hesitant, because I don't know for sure if another variety pollinated another.  How do you keep them separate enough to have confidence in the seeds you are collecting are self-pollinated and not crossed?  I'm worried about plants not growing up as expected in year two.  Some may find joy in this, where I'm afraid I'll find anxiety.
 
Second, how do you keep your collected seeds stored?  some sort of seed organizers? if they exist?
 
The best way would be to buy from reputable sources. If you're growing yourself and want to make sure they grow true next season then you want to either isolate your whole plant or isolate individual blossoms. I won't get into it in detail here but there are a lot of threads on here that explain how to do it. And as far as storage goes, a lot of guys are using baseball card sleeves. That link that qandeel posted will show you.
 
I use these cool new mason jars for seed storage.  They are jelly jar size but look like something you would find in an old apothecary.  I print out Avery labels for them and then they go into a box.  But I am planning on building a cabinet for them.  But I am kind of odd.  I love that medieval look of things.  The important part is to keep them away from light, heat, changing temperatures, humidity.  Use your imagination.

I have a friend who uses those little zip lock bags.  You can get them at Walmart in the bead n craft section.  Then they put them in the baseball card book that I think someone already mentioned.  My friend has everything in alphabetical order.  When he gets a new variety, he reorganizes everything.  It is fun to watch.  I dared suggest he leaves blanks for expansion and learned he is OCD worse than I am.  Point being, collecting is an obsession for some folk and I love it.

On preventing cross pollination, if you are just growing for your self it is easy.  You can isolate an individual pod with a dab of glue on the flower before it opens.  Want to isolate more than a pod or two?  I forget what they are called but there are these little see threw fabric bags that are often used to hand out bird seed or rice at weddings.  A step larger and you can use the paint strainer bags that fit five gallon buckets.  After that, you can build frames to suspend agricultural bridal cloth.  The main focus is to keep insects ( I think they are called vectors ) out.  Nothing works perfectly, but the big boys often use nothing more than distance to isolate their varieties.

Welcome to the obsession.
 
Depends on how much you rely on insects as your pollinators too, I guess. If your flowers mainly get (self-)pollinated by the wind, or if you do it by hand, chances are your seeds will grow true. If you have a lot of insects buzzing around your plants you might want to use some isolation techniques.
 
MikeUSMC said:
You're probably thinking about "tulle" cloth/netting. Same thing as the 'bridal cloth' you mentioned above ;)
Click to expand...
 
That's it!  Of course in five minutes I am going to forget again.  I think that is what the stuff at the fabric store is called.  I used to make sleeves out of it to do branches. 
 
 
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