Saving Seeds

I know this isn’t talked about in early spring, because the focus is putting seeds in the focus is on planning and putting into ground right now. BUT….

Here’s my garden right now. Even before the seeds go in the ground, I still have seeds that are preparing to be ready to harvest.

Talking with others who are expanding their seed saving skills, they haven’t yet experienced saving seeds from the Brassica family (cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli and others). One reason for this is most likely because we grew up being told to clear out garden beds at the end of the year. But for gathering these seeds, you need to leave the plant in the ground after you’ve harvested.

In previous years, I harvested cabbage in the spring after the pods have formed and dried. But when I let this bed go fallow, I left the cabbage in for a second year. Mainly it was to see what the life cycle of cabbage looks like after I’ve long pulled mine.

In the second year with cabbage, any additional heads that grow are much smaller than the original year (for growing purposely, definitely not the best use of garden space). What I hadn’t counted on was a second gathering of seeds.

Why might you consider these seeds?

The general rule of thumb is that you save the seeds from successful plants–the biggest and best. But as I said, this second year cabbage didn’t really produce heads of quality in the second year.

Seeds are the memory of the plant.

The seeds of this second year cabbage not only contain the memory of the first year head growth AND it remembers the bad growing season this past year (unseasonably cold and wet that made me question if I’d grow anything).

Originally I wasn’t going to save these second year seeds because the potential passing on of tiny cabbage heads is not what I’m looking for. However the seeds do contain the memory of surviving through an uncharacteristic cold year.

So after going back and forth on what I’m going to do, I’ve decided to keep these seeds. I’m going to perform a comparison of first and second year seeds to see what the difference in performance will be.

This will be a future post since the seeds are not ready to do the comparison this year.

What is the life cycle of Brassica and their seeds?

Whether you’ve allowed your Brassica family plants go to seed or they just bolted on you when the heat of summer came, you may have seen something like this:

This was one of my rapini that bolted on me. The first thing that you see is the bolt.

Next, the flowers (which form the seed pods) grow for pollination. While there are still flowers you will see some of the seed pods developing.

Out of all the plants that I’ve collected seeds from, I think the Brassica family is the one that I’m most impatient with. I don’t know if it’s just my grow zone or everyone starts tapping their toe asking their plant, “Are you done yet?”

These pods remind me so much of beans. And I honestly expected them to bulge out more than you see above. But this is what the end of the seed maturing stage looks like, immature beans. Even though these pods are fully grown, they still aren’t done yet. They will turn beige.

Everyone I’ve heard always described them to turn brown. I translated that to mean that they would darken. But the first time that I saved these seeds, they started bursting open when they were beige in color. So once you start seeing the green fade from these pods, you know it’s almost time to pull the plant and collect the seeds.

What you are waiting for is the pod to turn papery dry. If you go out each day to check on your seed pods, you will get the feel for it when you see the first one pop open. The pod will look very much like this threaded hook:

Do you see how the center of this hook has a frame and then there is negative space?

Theseed pods of Brassica have the exact same structure. There is this frame like structure with negative space in the middle.

When the pod bursts, it’s the dry skin that cracks open and falls away. The seeds live in this center portion of the frame. So when the pods open, the seeds fall out and the frame remains on the Brassica stem.

The goal is to catch your Brassica with fully mature branches, dry beige skin, before they release their seeds. Once you accomplish this, you cut the branches off or uproot the whole plant.

If you can’t open a pod by rubbing it between your fingers, you will want to hang your branches/plant upside down in a cool dry place. This can take a week or two. But the pods will crumble.

Removing the Seeds from the Pod

Once the seeds opened in my hand, I chose to put the branches into a pillow case and tie off the open end. Then I gave the pillow case to my kiddos and told them to hit the pillow case against the deck!

This was perfect timing for this project because my kiddos were at each other and I couldn’t keep them from hitting each other. So I gave them an alternate action of being aggressive. After each one had a turn, the pods had all broken open and the seeds were all released inside the pillow case.

To separate out the seed from the chaff (stems and pods), I just used the traditional method of winnowing. I modified this by using a little modern convenience of a box fan on high speed. Because the chaff was so thoroughly dried out, they blew away with ease. And even though the seeds are small, they really do drop back down into the pillow case that I kept at the porch in front of my box fan.

If you want to see how this type of winnowing process is done, there are countless videos on YouTube. There are some that do this winnowing with Brassica seeds, but the majority is in relation to wheat and other grains. The process is the same. So whether you watch how grains or Brassica are winnowed, you will understand this process. There’s no need to invest in a winnowing box or other tool unless that is the path you want to go down. All you need is your seeds on a cloth and a wind source (whether natural or manufactured).

There’s no further step that you need to take in processing your seeds. Just store

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Even though now is the time to plan and plant in your garden beds, I wanted to talk about saving Brassica seeds now. Where you plant your Brassica now for a spring crop, it will stay there for the rest of the growing season. And in some locations, it will need to overwinter to give your plant enough time to make its seeds and mature them.

This is a slow process. But it so worth it when you can grow hundreds upon hundreds of seeds in a single season and not be dependent on what’s available in future market sales.

What are your tips for saving Brassica seeds?

What other seeds do you save from your garden?