Where/how do you plant seed veggies?

[jajbellsouthnet]

Where and how do you plant and harvest vegetable plants which are used for their seeds? Plants like mustard, kale, turnips, etc. are no problem as they go to seed rather rapidly. Other plants require much longer to go to seed, all the while occupying valuable garden space. I have been waiting a year now for my leek to produce a seed head. How do you folks do it? Separate bed for seed plants? Containers? Separate garden?..............

[zebraman]

Hey Jajbellsouthnet;I am also waiting on my Torpedo Onions to produce seeds next year.Leeks are the same.What I usually do is move them to a large Pot(3 ft dia.-3 ft deep.grow them out of the way.My garden is such that if I run out of space I build another bed.-

[Smoky]

I leave a plant or two at the end of the row, designated as seed plants. I can still pick usable tomatoes, etc,(just not ALL of them) but I know the seeds I save will come off those plants. For peppers, I bag the blossoms before they open to keep them from crossing and put a colorful twist-tie around the stem loosely to mark that fruit as a seed pepper. Once it grows enough to see the pod emerging from the bloom, it can't be pollinated so I can remove the bag.

[zebraman]

Hey Guys;When saving seeds from inbreeding plants like tomatoes or peppers you need to save seeds from at least 25-30 plants in order to have a healthy germplasm.This is also true with "outbreeding plants like squash.
Saving seed from just one pepper or tomato is like filling All Spermbanks from just one Trailer Park.-

[Smoky]

In theory that's right, BUT...you would have to keep them all seperate and plant some of each parent to insure that genetic diversity thang. So, for the last 25 years I've just saved from a few plants that look like the type I want to grow, if one is "runty" or diseased, don't keep the seeds, of course.
If you saved all those seeds and mixed them together, it'd still be a crapshoot, you might be only planting seeds from a few UNLESS you want to plant them all.

[zebraman]

Hey Guys; This is Really Easy.Grow 30 plants of each variety.Of those rogue out any that are not up to snuff.Of the plants that are left pick the plants that are the healthiest and productive.The plants that produce the biggest tomatoes are Not the ones you want to save seeds from as they are lacking genetics.I tithe 10% of what I grow and give away the top 10%-which is also smart from a genetic standpoint as well.
Of the plants that are really productive I harvest 2-3 tomatoes and mark each fermenting jar with variety and #(1-25).when seeds are done and dried I take 2 seeds from each batch and put them in an envelope w/date and seed count,and mark as Germplasm.I use that for next year.Tomato seeds are viable for several years when stored correctly.
Alot of people are starting to wake up to this and are stating this in the SSE yearbook.I have been doing this since the early 80's.
If you really want to know what to do buy Susanne Ashworth's book-"Seed to Seed." She is an Expert in the field and won't lead you astray.-

[jajbellsouthnet]

Having given this problem more thought, I think that I am going to try growing my seed-saving plants in 5-gallon buckets for the following reasons:
Easy to isolate from other plants. Doesn't even have to be in the garden.
Easy to protect from frost if frost arrives before seed head.
Easy to harvest seed. Put a garbage bag over the plant, cut it off at the base and hang the whole thing upside down until it sheds it's seed.
I'll let you know how it turns out.........

[AlchemyAcres]

Easy to harvest seed. Put a garbage bag over the plant, cut it off at the base and hang the whole thing upside down until it sheds it's seeds.

A friendly heads-up.....mold will likely be a VERY serious problem.


~Martin :)

[zebraman]

Hey Guys;The logical solution would be to make bags or isolation cages out of Remay/row cover.-