Saving your own seeds also helps to preserve genetic diversity, as well as feeding the bees and butterflies with a familiar pollen of yesteryear. So, if you’d like to save your garden seeds, plan to keep different varieties of the same family apart, or isolate them during their reproductive cycle. This is a good indication that fermentation is occurring, which further rids the seeds of their gel coating and separates poor seeds (the floating seeds) from the viable ones (the sunken seeds). Learn tips for creating your most beautiful (and bountiful) garden ever. By using The Spruce, you accept our, How to Save Lettuce Seeds From Your Garden, Growing Cucumbers of All Shapes and Sizes, How to Save Tomato Seeds to Grow Next Year, How to Save Beans to Plant in Next Year's Garden, Seed Saving - Quick Tips for Saving Your Garden Favorites. Allow the seeds and pulp to mold for a few days, and then wash off and dry the seeds like above. Follow on Instagram and sign up for their newsletter for more inspirations on living a sustainable life. Harvest the overgrown cucumber and cut it in half lengthwise. Furthermore, it is useful to know that cucumbers are both wind and insect pollinated and it just so happens that cucumbers can be hand pollinated when necessary, just like squash and pumpkins. Add enough water to equal the volume of the seed mass, and put the container in a warm spot out of direct sunlight. The first step to saving cucumber seeds is to isolate your plant before it fruits. Save Seeds from the Best Plants. Non-viable seeds will float to the top, the rest will sink. If you’re dealing with plants that have tiny seed-producing flowers such as basil, snip the entire stalk to let the seeds fall naturally into an envelope or container. Remember you should only save seeds from open-pollinated (OP) tomatoes. Once you have your garden planted, you’ll want to be sure not to accidentally eat all of your seed crops! Step 3 – Place the seeds in a bowl, or jar, and cover the seeds with water. Allowing the cucumber to then sit for about 2 more weeks before harvesting its seeds will greatly increase the seeds viability. Once completely dry, your seeds can be stored in envelopes or a glass jar with a clear label specifying the date and variety. Herein, lies the difference. Scoop the pulp contents into a small bowl or mason jar, then add enough room-temperature water to cover the pulp and seeds, which will help remove their gel coating. First, pick the cucumber from the vine using either your hand or a pair of gardening sheers if the vine is too thick. To complicate things even further, cucumbers cross-pollinate easily with other cucumber varieties, which can impact the success of future harvests. If you save seeds from a hybrid variety and replant them, you likely won't get any cucumbers. Any debris or unviable seeds will again float to the top, making them easy to skim off and discard. Step 7 – Label and store your saved cucumber seeds in an envelope, breathable cotton bag or a glass jar in a cool, dry place. Once properly dried, seeds can also be sealed in airtight containers and stored in … For successful seed saving, you must assure seed purity. Hybrid plants are created by cross-breeding select “parent plants” with desirable characteristics. Once you learn how to properly save seeds, you can share them freely and spread the knowledge too. This can take anywhere from 1 to 3 days, and will smell like a gently fermenting cucumber salad. You can also keep seeds dry using rice kernels. Pumpkins and melons: seeds need to be washed and set aside to dry for a week or so before storage. Saving Seeds for Next Year. This means that cross pollination can be an issue in a smaller garden, and definitely within an allotment or community garden. Then, gently place the pollen onto the stigma in the center of the female flower. (See : How To Save Heirloom Tomato Seeds) And once all of your vegetable seeds are saved and stored, you will be armed and ready for planting your garden next year – with zero expense! Follow the same process with the adjacent male flowers, making sure to tag the bags that contain the female blossoms so you can easily identify them later as the ones you'll harvest for seeds. Since its my first year saving these seeds I will test the unfermented seed to see how it compares with the cleaned seed. Step 7 – Label and store your saved cucumber seeds in an envelope, breathable cotton bag or a glass jar in a cool, dry place. This may make for a lovely green, uniform, well formed cucumber, but it comes with a caveat: seeds saved from hybrids are often sterile. (By comparison, a cucumber or zucchini must go long past ripeness, ... Mr. Greene advised, save its seed, in case supply is short. To remove the seed, cut into quarters lengthwise, avoiding the core, and pull apart. It is extremely rewarding to plant them year after year, with the same delicious results. Use the scissors, knife or bamboo sticks from your collecting kit to harvest the ripe seeds. A dark closet in a cooler part of the house or a dry, cool basement are both good spaces to store seeds for a year or two. Before saving cucumber seeds, you'll first need to make sure you are dealing with an open-pollinated or non-hybrid variety, otherwise known as an heirloom. They will enlarge and turn yellow. Another (more in-depth) way to isolate your cucumber plant involves building a cage to enclose the entire plant. So if you don’t practice crop rotation very often and like to plant things in the same location year after year, then this method might work wonderfully for you. For example: arugula, cilantro, and lettuce seeds are easy to save because you just let the plant form flowers and go to seed, wait until the seed heads dry, and then harvest the seeds. Allow the seeds to completely dry out for a week or longer depending on size. 6. Professional seed savers recommend separating cucumber varieties by at least half a mile when planting in order to prevent crossing. Melons are members of the cucumber family, and they are open Wet seeds, such as tomato and cucumber seeds, often need to be fermented to remove pulp and germination-inhibiting substances. They need to be pollinated by insects or the wind (or hand-pollinated by the gardener) in order to set fruit. Cucumbers, on the other hand, require a … This can take anywhere from 1 to 3 days, and will smell like a gently fermenting cucumber salad. It all started at a young age with a love for the outdoors, followed by a keen interest in goats, which turned into a love for raising ducks and mangalica pigs on the Plains of Hungary. How to collect and save vegetable seeds: Beans, peas and corn: remove husks and allow seeds to dry out – this may take a couple of weeks, then remove casings and store. Once the fruit is done, melon and watermelon seeds simply need to be washed, dried and stored for next year. The first step is to choose your best-looking tomatoes. Only harvest mature seeds from the healthiest plants. Step 6 – Place seeds on a paper towel or screen until they are thoroughly dry. Once you have mastered the act of saving your cucumber seeds, why not move onto tomatoes. Non-viable seeds will float to the top, the rest will sink. 3. While you're harvesting cucumbers to use in your kitchen, set aside a few specifically for harvesting seeds. Read on for tips about collecting seeds from melons. The reason you’ll do this is to remove the gel coating that surrounds these types of seeds. Once dry, store the seeds in an air-tight storage bag or a Mason jar and label them for next year's sowing. Here’s our tutorial for saving tomato seeds so you can try it for yourself. It's important to keep an eye on the cucumbers you'll be harvesting throughout the season to ensure they don't look like they're diseased in any way. If stored properly, your cucumber seeds will remain viable for 10 years. Cucumber seeds are relatively easy to save for planting next year. Ground vines should be planted about three feet apart. If you suspect that your pepper plant was infected with a disease, whether it be viral or bacterial, don’t save those seeds. Saving seed from one year to plant the next is an age-old tradition. Similar to saving tomato seeds, you'll want to set the container aside (uncovered) in a warm spot that ideally maintains a temperature between 70 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. They are considered wet seeds. The seeds will need to ferment to remove the outer coating on the seeds. That includes all the heirlooms. You can use this same process to save seeds from tomatoes and cucumbers as well. Leave them in the water until the pulp separates from each individual seed. You don't want bees pollinating the cucumber plants you'll be saving seeds from, so this is the part where you play Mother Nature yourself. And again: ... Leave some to develop for next year’s seed supply. If you have done your research on open-pollinated varieties and heirlooms well ahead of planting time, you’ll know that hybrids are to be avoided if you would like to save any sort of seeds for the following garden season. You can save 100+ seeds from a single cucumber ready to grow again next year. To harvest a cucumber for seeds, means that it will no longer be small and green. Saving vegetable seeds can help preserve the particular variety you are growing (for example if you are growing an heirloom variety). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Remove the seeds and let them ferment in a pail for three days the same as tomato seeds to remove the gel around them. The seeds are enclosed in a slippery jelly like sack to keep them from sprouting inside the moist fruit. The Spruce uses cookies to provide you with a great user experience. Cucumber seeds will last up to 5 years in proper storage – to be safe, plant them and save seeds again as often as possible! Currently she is homesteading in northern Romania, amidst charming haystacks, with her husband and homeschooled daughter. The good news is, a monster zucchini full of mature seeds can still be eaten, cored and stuffed. Store dry seeds in a cool garage that is frost-free. Most of the time, the result is a … Squeeze or spoon the seed mass into a waterproof container (glass, jar, plastic cup, or deli container). Place seeds on a paper towel or screen until they are thoroughly dry. Leave them in the water until the pulp separates from each individual seed. Next season, plant your saved seeds one inch deep. Saving cucumber seeds ensures you have the same plant for next season. Turns out, it is a bit more complicated than that, luckily not by much. Sources of open-pollinated vegetables seeds include Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Seeds of Change, Seed Savers Exchange, and Territorial Seed Company. Once all (or at least the majority of) your seeds have sunk, add additional water to the container to clean them. This post may contain affiliate links. Happy Gardening – Jim and Mary Slice your cucumber in half long ways, and scoop out the seeds. When cross-pollination occurs, know that the old wives’ tale is simply not true. She is an avid organic gardener who can often be found eating nourishing “weeds” and making herbal infusions, just as she can be seen planting native trees to help others around the world to lower their carbon footprints. In order to save seeds from cucumbers, you must let them thoroughly ripen on the vine. It may sound like extra work but the results can be extremely rewarding and save you money in the process. You can save ten years worth of cucumber seeds, once every ten years! Once a day, stir the mixture thoroughly. Leave the seeds in there for a total of three days. Cut the cucumbers lengthwise to expose their seed. This puts you at risk of spreading the virus to next year’s plants through this year’s seeds. Every gardener and homesteader knows, or will quickly find out, that cost tops the list of reasons to save their own garden seeds. Read More. Label and store your saved cucumber seeds in an envelope, breathable cotton bag or a glass jar in a cool, dry place. You want to save seed from the finest fruit, so that next year's plant will have good genes. For vertical vines, plant seeds one foot apart. Put the harvested seeds into a large bowl, and add an equal amount of water. When you happen upon a cucumber, yellowing and past its prime, take it as a learning opportunity. You find a chart listing how long seeds last, as well as seed storage tips right here! If stored properly, your cucumber seeds will remain viable for 10 years. To save cucumber seeds, the fruits must be allowed to mature far past the stage they're usually eaten – until they're ripe and have turned orange or yellow. The time to save cucumber seeds is when the fruit on the plant is ripe. They have flowers that are self-pollinating and seeds that require little or no special treatment before storage. Some seeds are easier to save than others. Some cucumber seed packages come with up to 10 seeds in them – an entire cucumber could have as many as 100 seeds! Colleen Vanderlinden is a freelance writer and the author of Edible Gardening for the Midwest. After the coating is removed, rinse seeds and spread them out on wax paper. To remove this sack, place the seeds in a dish and cover with water. Even if next year’s crop emerges and turns into a similar looking cucumber, it will not be exactly the same – the original characteristics will have morphed. Once approximately three days have passed, you'll notice that some of the seeds have begun to sink to the bottom of the container. Rinse the good seeds a few more times, then strain them and place them on paper towels to dry. Cucumber seeds will last up to 5 years in proper storage – to be safe, plant them and save seeds again as often as possible! Squashes and cucumbers cannot cross pollinate. Tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas are good choices for seed saving. 5. If you save seed only from the biggest tomato of the bunch and replant them year after year, you’ll eventually end up with seeds that produce plants on which all the tomatoes are bigger. Saving melon seeds from this year’s crop to plant in next year’s garden requires planning and attention to detail. All of your seed saving expertise will be in vain if you try to save hybrid seeds. Once dry, store the seeds in an air-tight storage bag or a Mason jar and label them for next year's sowing. Copyright © 2020 Rural Sprout on the Seasoned Pro Theme, 10 Attention Grabbing Heirloom Vegetables to Grow This Year, How To Hand Pollinate Tomato Flowers To Triple Fruit Production, Here’s our tutorial for saving tomato seeds. Set the bowl aside and leave it in a warm space – to allow fermentation to begin. Shake seeds into … Take cucumbers, for example. Keep the Seeds Dry Using a Silica Gel Packet or Raw Rice It's essential that the seeds remain dry while being stored. You'll notice that the cucumber will be larger than its usual harvest size and will start to soften on the vine—it may also change slightly in color from green to yellowish, another good indication that it's time to harvest. 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