Seed Saving

I have been saving seeds from the plants in my garden. I have looked up information on collecting seeds. Hopefully, I am doing it right. It will be interesting in the Spring to see how well the seed I have saved germinate. And then next summer to how the fruits or flowers compare to their parents.

I have many Bachelor Buttons that came up voluntarily. I collected a bunch of seed heads. 

Bachelor Button Seed Heads

I am mixing together several different herb and flower seeds as I collect them. I think it will be fun to have a mixture to sow in an area of the yard. I have cilantro, dill weed, bachelor buttons, calendula, borage, and cosmo in my mix thus far.

Calendula seeds develop on the maturing flower head in a visually interesting way. The shape of calendula seeds are quite unique, too.

Looking directly down at a seed head of calendula.

Calendula seeds 

Borage usually self sows very readily. I have included borage seeds in my mix just as insurance.

Borage

I have these gorgeous rust colored sunflowers that I am saving seed from.

Also some ordinary sunflowers.

This sunflower was still opening up one morning.
Can you spot the sleeping bee resting on the flower?

I heard that once the rays have fallen off of the sunflower blooms the heads can be cut and dried in a paper bag as the seeds continue to mature. The seeds look quite under developed at this stage, but I hope they turn out to be viable.

This is my first time saving tomato seeds. I have Black Krim, Rutger, and Roma varieties.

I followed the fermentation method for saving wet seeds with my tomatoes and my cucumber.

I wanted to save pickling cucumber seeds. I don't remember the exact variety of cucumbers that I planted. I didn't grow anything that would cross with cucumber so, I'm sure the seeds I saved will grow some kind of cucumbers.

Once the seeds were clean and dry I put them in labeled, paper envelopes for storage.

Do you save seeds from your garden?