Beetroot should be harvested when young and tender, twist off the leaves and leave the root intact for cooking, or there will be bleeding.

No need to store beetroot in boxes of sand or peat, they do fine out in the garden for the winter.

It is important that we observe the plants closely during the entire growing season with seed production in mind. Any plants or fruits that have unusual characteristics must be removed so that varietal purity can be preserved. This is called roguing. Observe for desirable traits (i.e. the one plant that doesn’t die in a frost or get mildewed as quickly as the rest) and collect seed from these particular plants. This is most valuable in adapting plants to Irish weather conditions.

If we want to distribute heirloom seeds to other Seed Savers we must ensure that they have not crossed with other varieties. Detailed instructions on how to do this are enclosed. If we want to develop our own varieties of vegetables an understanding of their genetics is helpful,

Saving your own seed is not difficult. Neither is developing your own varieties. The most important tools are observation, curiosity and a waterproof marker. Making notes each year can build to a large body of useful research material.

The Birds and the Bees story

For a plant to produce true seed it must indulge in sexual reproduction that is, a pollen grain and an ovule combine to form the embryonic seed. The pollen grain and ovule contain half the genetic material from their parent plant so both are needed to produce a complete set of genes and produce a seed. The pollen grain and the ovule may be from the same plant in which case you get a re-combination of the genetic material of the parent or they may be from different plants in which case the seed will contain genetic material from both parents.

Some plants are wind pollinated and some are insect pollinated. Usually the plants with colourful flowers are insect pollinated and the ones that are wind pollinated have pretty boring looking flowers. Of the cultivated plants, the most important wind pollinated plants are the grasses or cereals including Maize and also the beet family. They produce absolutely loads of pollen to give you hay fever and also to insure that some pollen reaches another plant of the same species. So if you want to breed true varieties of sweet corn or wheat you must grow a good big block of the crop and not have a neighbour with an even bigger block of different variety of the same species. The pollen from wind pollinated plants travels long distances and can cross oceans. Maize here would be quite difficult to save seed from if you had neighbour growing fodder maize for cows.

Insect pollinated plants have many different forms. In self pollinating flowers like a pea or tomato, pollen from the anthers falls onto the stigma of the same flower inside the closed flower and pollination occurs. In the wild forms insects would have been involved but at some point in domestication self-pollinating has been selected for. These plants do sometimes cross pollinate making it all a bit more complicated but generally make it easy for the seed saver. All you have to do is collect the mature seed, extract it from the pod or fruit, dry it and put it away till next year. Relatively small distances between varieties will avoid cross-pollination.

Things start getting more complicated when you get to Brassicas, carrots and onion family things. These plants have more open flowers and are designed for cross-pollination. The insect gets pollen all over its self and starts crawling around on these open flowers and there is a much greater chance of pollen from a different plant getting onto the stigma. Also there are wild varieties of some of these plants. Your carrot seed may be contaminated if you have wild carrot around, which is why most carrot seed is produced in Kenya where they don�t have wild carrot. We also have wild Brassicas such as charlock, which can cross with cultivated varieties. However these crosses will only produce a few plants which can usually be spotted, as white carrots for instance. They are not a major problem in most places.

Because diversity is generally a good thing in nature the marrow family has gone to a good deal of trouble to ensure cross-pollination. What they do is produce male and female flowers. This greatly increases the chance that the pollen that reaches an ovule is from a different plant. Bees when they are working generally work the same kind of plant so that on a particular day a particular bee will be on Brassicas and will completely ignore the marrows and a different bee will be on marrows. This is useful to plants because they get mostly their own kind of pollen left on them. I suppose it is useful to bees too but I don�t know why.

As a rule (which is sometimes broken) plants with the same Latin name can cross with each other and plants that have different Latin names cannot. A good gardening book and some seed catalogues will tell you the Latin name.

Hybrid seeds are produced when pollen from one true breeding variety is introduced to the ovules of another variety. These crosses are more difficult to produce in the home garden but often produce vigorous plants with the best qualities of both. They are possible but not really practical on a home seed saver scale and so I�m not going to go into them.

Seed saving of Peas & Beans
Seed saving of Brassicas
Seed saving of Tomatoes
Seed saving of Lettuce
Seed saving of Cucurbita
Seed Saving of onions and leeks
Seed saving of Potatoes

Seed can be taken from squashes, marrows, melons and pumpkins when they are picked for eating. Squash seeds develop for some time after the fruit appear mature and should be left for a couple of months after harvest in a warm dry place while this happens. Cucumbers need to be allowed to go soft on the vine before being picked for seed extraction. Leave the cut cucumber for two weeks before scraping out the seeds and separating them from the gelatinous liquid in which they are bathed by allowing the mixture to ferment in a large bowl in a warm place for three or four days, stirring from time to time. (The smell is truly foul). Then fill up the bowl with water and stir. The good seeds will sink to the bottom. Pour off the liquid and rinse the seeds in more water before placing them on a tray or plate to dry in a warm, well-ventilated place. Likewise with courgettes, the fruit must reach maturity, ie they must be bigmarrows with hard skin before the seed is ready to harvest. Then like other squash varieties, the seed may be separated from the fruit and can be washed and put on a plate to dry straight away. Never allow the drying temperature to exceed 32 degrees C. The seeds are dry when a sample snaps in two when you try to bend it. They do need to be dried fairly quickly or they will go mouldy. A fan or blower heater on a low heat is helpful if the weather is damp. Keep them in a labelled airtight jar. They will last for 5-10 years. It is best to store winter pumpkins for several weeks before extracting seed to ensure proper germination the following season.

The seed is ripe between twelve and twenty-four days after flowering. For maximum seed visit each plant daily and, without breaking the stems, shake the seed heads into a large plastic sack. Alternatively the plant can be harvested when most of the flower heads have gone fluffy and dried off in a paper bag in a warm place. The seeds will fall out when the plant is banged on the sides of the bag or rubbed gently between the hands. Beware of a lot of nasty dust when doing this. Sieve the seeds through a colander to remove any rubbish, and sieve through a fine mesh to remove fine dust (and earwig droppings which always seem to get in.) Leave in a well-ventilated room for a few days to ensure they are dry and store in an airtight jar in a cool place. The seeds should remain viable for three years.

External Links

Growing and Preparing Loose Leaf Lettuce: A Custom Essay
Let Us Grow Lettuce!

The three species of beans will not readily cross with each other, and not at all with peas, so you can ignore the possibility when planning where to plant.

a) Broad beans: 800 meters from other broad beans. Pollinated by bees and as varieties cross very easily with each other, grow only one variety each year. Beware farmers growing field beans anywhere in the vicinity.

b) Runner beans: 800 meters from other runners as cross-pollinated by bees. Grow only one variety each year or put an insect-proof fleece bag around each flowering truss required for seed and initiate pollination by pressing down the lower part of every flower as it opens to mimic a bee landing.

c) French beans: a few meters from other French bean cultivars.

d) Peas: Opinions vary. Some authorities suggest 25-100 meters from other peas. Others advise merely that as a minimum barrier between two different types of pea.

The first pods to form are usually the best to save as seed as they tend to be bigger. Label the seed from each year’s harvest and keep it separate. This is because if a crossing has accidentally occurred, it will probably reveal itself by changes in the colour or the shape of seeds in the second generation. If you notice suspicious changes, throw away (or eat), both the affected peas or beans, and those of the previous crop. It is necessary to go back two years to restore purity. Peas and all three types of bean will keep for a least three years if kept cool and dry.

Brassica oleracea vegetables such as cauliflower sprouts and ordinary cabbage all have 18 chromosomes. So has charlock a bright yellow weed that is common on my farm and generally in this area. All of these in the words of Laurence Hills join and change partners in the dance of life as easily as all races do at a Fourth of July party at an American Air base in Hawaii. I have never been to a 4th of July party in Hawaii but I do know how easy it is to get your broccoli mixed up with your cabbage. So this is not an easy group for the beginner. It also takes two years to produce seed as the first year the plant is busy producing sprouts of leaves and doesn’t do flowers until the second year. (some summer broccoli will seed in the same year) The good news is that the seed keeps for a long time so if you do one a year for seed and the others for eating you can keep 10 or so varieties going. Add a few other seed savers into the equation and the number of varieties you could grow is endless. To produce seed form a cabbage Laurence Hills suggests you cut it from top to bottom and then across dividing it into quarters. This prevents water collecting in the cabbage during the winter and ensures that the plant will grow new shoots from each corner in the spring about two feet high and four feet square and a mass of solid bloom. The seed stalks are gathered in August and threshed. Brussels sprouts should be staked and the top cabbage bit allowed to sprout. However commercially the stump is cut down to the foot in spring and the side shoots are allowed to flower. Because Brassicas are out breeders a larger number of plants need to be grown to avoid inbreeding. At least twenty individuals should be kept for seed, which is quite an investment in space, and kilograms of seed will be produced. Inbreeding causes reduced vigour and yield. Varieties should be 800m apart.

Well-stored seed keeps for at least ten years so a different type can be saved each year. Another necessary precaution is to plant a big block of the type of brassica whose seed you wish to save to make it less likely that plants at the heart of the block will be pollinated by insects carrying pollen from Brassicas elsewhere.

Brassica rapa-Chinese Cabbages, Mizuna etc. and white turnips, This group has 20 chromosomes and keep themselves to them selves. Often you can let more than one variety go to seed in the year by separating their flowering times. An over-wintered mizuna, for instance will have set its seed before a spring sown Pak Choi starts to flower in late summer.

Raphanus sativus Radish
Radishes are annuals and produce seed the same year. However many planted late in the year will over-winter and flower spectacularly in spring. Varieties should be 400 metres. apart Radishes will cross with each other but not with other Brassicas. The same applies to mustards. As a result, only one variety of each should be allowed to run to seed each season and the block-

Seed Separation and Storage
Cut and collect the seed stems before the pods begin to scatter their contents over the garden. You will get many more seeds than you can use Allow the stems to dry indoors and beat and sieve to extract the seed. Store in an airtight jar in a cool place. They should remain viable for at least five years.

Watch the flower heads carefully as the seeds develop as the pods shatter and scatter the seeds very easily. Cut the heads as soon as you can see black seed inside them and collect them in a paper bag to finish drying. After several days, rub the heads between your hands to Extract the seed; sieve out the debris and store in an airtight jar in a cool dark place. It will last for two years. If the weather goes really wet and nasty before the seed has matured bring the whole plants into the greenhouse or polytunnel for a while before trying to dry them.

To prevent crossing a paper bag or a piece of fleece can be tied around tomato trusses when they are in flower. It can be removed after the fruit has set.

Cut ripe tomatoes in half and squeeze out the seeds and juice. Allow the seeds and pulp to ferment in a warm place for three days, to release them from the jelly that surrounds them, before filling up the container with water and stirring vigorously. Allow the seeds time to settle on the bottom and then pour away the liquid on top. Rinse and repeat until only good seeds remain. Strain away any remaining water and spoon out the seeds on to a plate to dry. They will stick to a pice of paper. Place the plate in a well-ventilated place out of the sun and, from time to time, stir the seed to break up the clumps and allow even drying. After several days when they are completely dry, put them in an airtight container. They will keep for about six years.