Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

After a bit of prompting...
I grow mostly traditional (non hibrid), so I seed save,
by allowing the best, strongest, most flavourfull, prolific to 'bolt'
or in the case of peas for example save the seed pods...
What methods do YOU use for establishing the ones you want to grow?

I've got an dead bean vine that has been out in the weather for a couple of years and every now an then I grab a bean pod and plant the seeds and they still grow.

Even tried a dragonfruit and saved the seeds from it and they are growing now as well.

As for picking out the best plant to save seed from that is a good way to find strains that like your soil. I have not had an AP system long enough to find any that like the GB.

My favourite saved seeds are for my Jap pumpkin - which has always done fantastically here, but I also save a few other things, including lots of garlic cloves each year for the next seasons plant out. For a lot of my plants though I am a proponent of self seeding in my dirt garden. Let things go to seed and then leave it up to nature. Is great for things like parsley, corriander, rocket, lettuce, tomatoes, chillis, basil, dill and lots of things that just aren't popping into my head right now. Of course for a lot of things this method is just not suitable and it also depends on whether you are happy to have a messy garden (which I am).

I saved the seeds from my mega bean garden, and the offspring are now a couple of inches high

I have enough bean seed to outlast me now

i save some seeds, some plants are just too much trouble to be worth it though. stuff like pumpkins etc are good, but when i can buy a packet of 150 seeds for 2 bucks it kind of seems futile.

LOL now what the kids grow up looking after grandpa's beans ..........

Only problem with the seeds you get at the store is they have a limited range. 3 types of standard tomatoes not counting cherry. Go online and you get a choice of 50+. A lot of people don't even use seed, just buy the seedlings. But if you find a plant you like then saving the seeds means you don't have to go looking for it later. And with the GM of plants they do these days it might be good to know that you will always have control over the plants you grow.

I have at least 3 varieties of tomatoe that I can be sure to have come up all over my yard every year (bloody birds)

Talk to a lady yesterday. She remembers her kids having a tomato fight last year. Guess whats growing in her garden,lawn,driveway. The local IGA gives all there old fruit & veg to a guy that feeds it to his horses and pigs. Has the funnies looking paddocks at his place. Like a market garden.

What about cloning? I have great success with tomatoes and basil cloning. With the tomatoes I let the suckers grow until they are about 20 cm long, then cut them off and stick them into the grow bed. Same with basil, cut off side branches and stick them right into the grow bed. Roots will develop in just a few days and the cutting will grow new side branches to repeat the process in just a few weeks.

With tomatoes, be sure to use the suckers for cloning. I cut off a regular side branch with leaves onces, and while it did develop roots, it doesn't grow new side branches or fruits, so now I have a branch of tomato leaves living in a pot on the windowsill, let's see how old it can get...

what do you mean by suckers?

i just noticed your signature...............very true

I save as many seeds as possible . I know nothing about gardening so I assume everything will work ...

this years broad bean , purple capsicum and yellow wax chilli plants are all grown from last years seed , which themselves were grown from seed

just started some paprika , lemon basil , normal basil & garlic chives from seeds from last year , hope they work

and Jessy , I know that was a joke , but ..
Ive got my grandpa's runner beans lying around somewhere in a sealed packet , last thing he ever gave to me & Ive been searching for them every year for the past 4 . I wanna plant them then take them around to my nanna to get her to cook em up the same way

Steve, the suckers are the branches growing where the leafy branches connect to the main stem of the tomato plant. You would normally prune them because they will suck up a lot of nutrients that would otherwise go into growing fruits. See here

The seeds I've been saving are the ones that I've never seen for sale. The "lawn weed" plantain seeds I save to make sure I always have plenty of that stuff growing around the place for medicinal use. I've also collected seeds from some other plants I've seen growing around and planted them. Stuff like Hibiscus.

Stuff like lemon basil, I just let go to seed and it re-plants it's self quite well.

I've saved seed from papaya and planted it. I now have many papaya plants around and some have fruit starting to get big but I have to hope for a gentle winter if we want any to mature.

I've occasionally allowed some other plants (radish comes to mind and carrots) to bolt and re-seed themselves but I've not made a habit of collecting many types of seeds.

Whats the best way to dry and store seeds? My beans have around a 50% germination rate compared to 95% for packet ones.