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sickpup

growing veggies to seed

can i let one of each veggie go to seed then keep the seeds for the following year?
Sarah D

Yes, if they are not F1 hybrids.
cab

Re: growing veggies to seed

sickpup wrote:
can i let one of each veggie go to seed then keep the seeds for the following year?


You can. Whether its a good idea or not depends on what the veggies are.

Tomatoes, peas and beans are excellent for seed saving. Squashes, courgettes etc. are tarts that cross with any other squashes and courgettes so if you want to save seed you need to be a bit more clever how you do it. Carrots, parsnips and other veg with close wild relatives can be a bit random. Lettuce is easy enough. Brassicas are, again, rather promiscuous so you need to exclude them from other brassica flowers. Beets and relatives are interesting, more often than not you do okay with chard self seeding, but beetroot seems to lose out a little.
sickpup

what are brassicas?
cab

sickpup wrote:
what are brassicas?


Cabbage, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, calabrese, and suchlike. They're all basically more or less the same plant; turnip is near as dammit the same plant as rape, so you may struggle to get good home saved turnip seed.

Rocket is also a brassica, and it'll cross with other rockets but what you get is usually still pretty good; generally, I sow rocket once a year, and I let some self seed about the place too, and this approach secures a more or less constant supply. I just weed it out when theres too much of it.
Azura Skye

if anyone is interested, I filmed an item about Heirloom seeds and seed saving for Wedi 3. It will be on at 3pm tomorrow on s4c, or the web - thanks : )
Woodburner

I came across a very nice e-leaflet on seed saving a few days ago. I'll see if I can find the link, as I c&p'd it for my own ease of reading.
Edit: Got it. It was still in history Smile http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html
Home on the Hill

Sue Stickland wrote a really good book on seed saving for gardeners - Back garden seed saving, I think it's called.

Carrie
Slim

Sarah D wrote:
Yes, if they are not F1 hybrids.


And sometimes even if they say that they are... Very Happy
Sarah D

Depends if you have time/inclination/space to take a chance on them growing true.
sickpup

Have just printed out that e-leaflet thank.
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