Seed Harvesting
This year I'm harvesting more than just marigolds.
Confession: I’m a seed hoarder.
Every year I buy seeds. I don’t need them. But I have to have them. No apologies – I’m a gardener. Here’s a sample of what seed I currently have in my stockpile.
- 5 kinds of beans
- 10 kinds of cucumber
- 6 kinds of eggplants
- 19 different coleus
- 17 different impatiens
- 9 different additional marigolds besides all of the ones I’ve harvested each year
- 60 kinds of petunias
- 12 kinds of salvia
- 22 kinds of vinca
- 27 kinds of zinnia
- 33 different leaf vegetables from arugula to swiss chard
- 22 kinds of pepper
- 55 kinds of tomatoes
And that’s a sample of what I have on hand. Yikes! And I just bought some more that aren’t on that list. Maybe I need an intervention… that’s a post for another day.
2020 Seed Harvest Plan
Typically I harvest a lot of the marigold seeds so I have a “fresh” crop every year. And I’ve occasionally harvested a pepper or tomato plant, knowing that they’ve cross pollinated with other pepper and tomato plants. This year I decided to try a few different plants that I really like.
Petunias – I don’t think so
I did some research on petunia seeds. As you can tell, I love me some petunias. All different kinds of petunias.
As I read it (and forgive me if I have this mixed up), the issue is most of the ones I have are hybrids. Hybrids or F1 seeds are not guaranteed to germinate. Some of the F1 plants don’t even have seeds. The big seed companies engineer the seeds so that they have a lot of flowers and are not fertile.
I thought about trying it because there is a small chance that they may germinate. But the thought of having a seed tray of 72 little petunia seed pots that don’t germinate makes me so sad and I do have plenty of them that I’ve bought. So I’m not going to try those.
This year’s winner is…
What I did collect was Laurentia and Lobelia. This is the first year I planted laurentia and I fell in love with it. I planted them in pots and in the new OZ Garden. I’m thinking of using them next year with the petunias and the zinnias as my summer annual fillers.
The actual act of harvesting seeds
It’s fairly easy — find a seed pod, crunch it open, catch all of seeds. They are really tiny. Make sure to put them in a paper bag or envelope and store them in a dry cool place. I keep my seed packets in covered bins in the basement.
