Saving Seeds from Vegetable Crops

title: "Saving Seeds from Vegetable Crops"

Seed saving connects what you grow this year to what you plant next year. Done properly, it preserves varieties that perform well in your specific conditions, accumulates locally-adapted genetics over multiple generations, and eliminates seed costs for the crops you save most reliably.

It's not complicated for the crops best suited to it — dry-seeded vegetables like beans, peas, lettuce, and tomatoes. It becomes more complicated for crops that cross-pollinate freely (corn, squash, brassicas) and impossible to replicate accurately from hybrid (F1) varieties.

Table of Contents

1. Open-Pollinated vs. Hybrid: What You Can Save
2. Easiest Crops to Save
3. Crops That Require Isolation
4. Seed Selection: Which Fruits to Choose
5. Drying and Cleaning Seeds
6. Storage Requirements by Crop
7. Viability Testing
8. Frequently Asked Questions

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