I hate to jump the gun, but I have no experience in harvesting seeds or seed storage.
I'm a novice garden and I'm under a grow light. I'm trying for an herb garden and some veggies on the side. Does anyone have any advice or tips on how to harvest seeds so that if I'm successful this year, I can recoup some of my expenses for next year?
I'm totally open to ideas of how to make sure seeds are pollinated, harvesting, and storing seeds for long-term storage.
Iv had success with washing seeds real good and putting in the oven on a cookie sheet on the lowest setting to dry them and storing them in baby food jars been doing it for about 4 years now and have had very good results you get the occasional seeds that don't sprout but over all good
You don't have to worry about pollinating the plants at all?
@Christopher Hogan it really depends on what you're trying to do, as long as you're saving from an heirloom and younly have 1 variety of that species you can assume that it's pollnated if it's fruitng, thanks squash for example, if I have no other kinds of squash around I can take seeds from a mature fruit and assume it will breed true. If I have a pumpkin plant next door I would have to isolate a female flower before it opens, usually by putting a mesh bag over it, and hand pollinating with a paintbrush, otherwise you end up with butter not squashkins. Same method with tomatoes. Some of the easiest to start with would be beans, you basically let a few pods stay on till the end of the season and dry out with the plant. You're honestly better off researching how to save seeds for each specific plant than in general, each plant has it's own method.
I have 14 hives of bees that do a great job pollinating I don't get real scientific with it especially with the garden the only thing iv really had trouble with is apple trees I planted 3 trees 1 Jonathan and 2 Ozark blacks three years ago and only one of the Ozark blacks has grown fruit the other 2 have not grown near as much they bloom buy never put on any fruit IV done some research on those but nothing really explains why only one itls putting on fruit
That's sad! Have you done anything different with that one arkansas black tree? How old are they? Are they in a different location? Have you thought about replacing them with something productive? Cant keep freeloaders 🤔😂.
They are all with in 30 ft or so of each other and I have treated them all the same only thing is it's the closest to my bees maybe that's it I'm not real sure ? They are all 4 years old
Mhhhh, did you buy them from different sources? Maybe different rootstock? In any event do you think they necessarily should be producing yet, or is the one producing just very young but thriving to become favourite tree? 😉.
I have had squish especially cross pollinate and the seeds arnt any good but it wasn't but about half my yellow crook neck so I still came out with good seeds I save seeds every year and that's what I use the next year for my garden it's worked fairly well I'd like to say it was me but the bees work amazing and keep the garden and my wife's herb garden and flowers pretty dang healthy
Plus the honey is a big plus fresh honey and a homemade pan of buiscuts one of my favorite things
Just as Homestead Mom mentioned and explained so eloquently, it gets a bit more complicated when it comes to saving seeds. Also quiet a couple of plants are propagated by layering or dividing roots. https://www.ebay.com/p/605668?iid=302389520802&chn=ps&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkePyBRCEARIsAMy5ScvhNzcrD-ILlG0vE6q6xa204gxOAj9JsaK8dy0zOXz8B8d8rmKUg48aAstREALw_wcB this is a very great book that also explains seeds saving very well. You probably could find it a lot cheaper, but it's worth every penny!