Free Seed Store!

By Penn Parmenter:  

Right now seed is hanging heavy and abundant in your garden; all you have to do is go get it!  It’s the greatest free seed store in the world, full of all the plants you love and know how to grow.  There are also wild things in the alley, and veggies, and the new flower you tried this year.

Bringing in the seed each fall is as normal as digging potatoes or storing the pumpkin harvest in a cool basement.  It’s easier than most harvest chores too, especially with ‘dry saves’.  I usually clip fully ripened seed-heads right into a labeled brown paper bag and stack it in a corner to continue drying. I’ll clean it in the dead of winter, a chore I’m fond of.  I’m usually too busy with everything else to process dry seed that will patiently, happily, wait.  If you have the time, give seed you bring in a chance to dry completely - on the plant or vine is best - but even if you removed seedpods, make sure they are fully dry before cleaning.  Our climate makes that easy.  Do not dry seed in direct sun.

Lupine seed is drying on a sheet in my living room right now. As each seedpod is ready, it unfurls with a crack, hurling seed all over the house.  The sheet is a feeble match for its exuberant flinging; seed bounces off the wall at 20’!  Lupine seed ripens one pod at a time, lowest pods first and continuing up the plant.  If you harvest it all at once chances are the pods at the top won’t ripen at all, but since these seed heads were given to me already cut I take what I can get.  At home I make several visits to the plant to harvest ripe and almost opened seedpods. 

All plants have built in survival mechanisms, super cool ways to spread their seed even in the face of disaster.  Cranesbill or wild geranium is another flinger and has an elegant catapult system that tosses ripe seed far and wide.  As the seed pod dries and starts to open, the arm of the catapult lets go and off goes the seed. 

You’ve seen Milkweed seed escaping its glorious pods, carried by the most glamorous and intricate parachutes to find a new home via the wind.   Plants like dandelion and lettuce throw their seeds on parachutes when they are threatened.  If you pull a dandelion or cut the seed head of a lettuce plant, they will open up all at once letting seed fly.  I cut seed heads of favorite lettuces when the flowering plant has about 40% seed puffballs on it.  You can see new buds, open flowers, and puffballs of parachutes on the plant at the same time.  Put the cut tops upside down in a brown paper bag and let them dry.  The unopened seedpods will throw their seed into the bottom of the bag to be cleaned and stored later.

Letting seed ripen in the fall is another beautiful dance of the garden to be witnessed and enjoyed.  The tendency to ‘clean up the garden’ in fall is something a seed saver sees differently.  Plants bloom and seed ripens at different times throughout the summer and fall, so pay attention; observation is crucial as it doesn’t happen all at once.  The plant shows you when the seed is ready to harvest; open seedpods often come in the form of cups or capsules, full of seed that’s ready to fly or spill at the slightest touch.

If you have wild places on your property where wildflowers that you love grow it’s easy to enhance them this time of year.  I have seen people try to move Indian Paintbrush (Castilleja integra) and others in flower, which will surely kill the plant since its energy is in flower and seed, not in new root growth.  A much more successful way to have more wildflowers on your property is to spread the seed when the plant does - in fall.  Up here in the mountains the deer and bear walk through knocking ripened seed-heads to the ground and maybe even step on them, dropping the seed and pressing it into the ground with their footprint. This is nature’s way along with wind, rain, hail, and snow, and you can get in on it too.  Inspect the seed regularly to see if the flowers have turned to green seedpods and if the green has dried to brown.  Once brown, watch until the seedpods or capsules start to crack open.  For parachute types, the flying happens fast so be there to collect seed before it’s all gone on the breeze.

I love saving vegetable seeds. Many are hanging on the plants right now so just go get ‘em.  Beans and peas still on the vine, bolted lettuce, peppers, over-ripe tomatoes, corn way past the milk stage, cucumbers that got away from you and are all yellow and big are all great candidates for easy seed saving.  If you grew only one kind of cucumber, you can save those older, yellowing cukes.  But if you grew multiple varieties they will cross and won’t produce true seed.  If you let one of your favorite open-pollinated basil varieties go to seed, cut the seed-heads after the seedpods have dried and opened.  Let peppers turn red and dry; cut a slit in their sides to prevent molding. 

Birds love many of the seed heads in your garden so they will show you when the seed is ripe by eating it.  This also happens fast; plan ahead so you can share.

Sometimes I pull up an old pea plant and find unseen seed pods hanging on that are just right for a labeled brown paper bag.  I can dry it on the plant if I have room to hang it or pick off the pods and bag them.  Immature pea pods will not ripen to seed.

Squash requires hand pollinating or isolation to get true seed.  There are 4 species in the squash family.  C. pepo, C. maxima, C. moschata, C. mixta. If you have no other squash growers around you, you can grow one variety from each species and get true seed.  If you hand pollinate, you can grow whatever squash you want. Each morning and evening during flowering time you hand pollinate, or as we call it, “have squash sex,” to get true seed.  You can learn how to hand pollinate squash here:  Organic Seed Alliance - seedalliance.org. (They also have a helpful, free downloadable seed saving book.)

I highly recommend Bill McDorman’s Basic Seed Saving featuring 18 vegetables in Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced sections, and 29 wildflowers. The classic Seed To Seed book by Suzanne Ashworth teaches expert seed saving by plant families.

Your garden is full of free seed!  Go get some hollyhock, cosmos, peppers, marigolds, calendula, dill, radish, peas, beans, rosehips, tomatoes, and morning glories.

Penn & Cord Parmenter garden and grow food and seed near Westcliffe. Both are regional high-altitude gardening instructors and the founders of Smart Greenhouses LLC, a sustainable greenhouse design company, and Miss Penn's Mountain Seeds. You can see their work at www.pennandcordsgarden.com