Seed Saving

These are those cute little cantaloupes I raised last year.  I saved the seeds from several cantaloupes last year.  Kept them in the freezer over the winter and planted the seeds about 2 weeks ago.  I was really excited to see that all went well with these little seeds and the process worked.

I saved the seeds from two cantaloupes.  When I cut open the cantaloupe I scooped out membranes, seeds and all and let it set on a plate in the kitchen.  The membranes around the seeds will start to mold and look pretty bad.  That's when you pull all of the membranes away from the seeds and wash the seeds under cool water and let them dry on a paper towel for a week.  You want to make sure the seeds are good and dry before you store them.  Then I put them in a small glass canning jar and put them in the freezer.  When I was ready to plant, I took them out of the freezer and let them set on the counter for 4 or 5 days.  The day I planted, I just covered them with water maybe 2 inches and let them set in the water for a couple of hours before I planted them. 

This year, I'm going to save my heirloom tomato seeds.  To start tomato plants from seeds is a lot of work and I'm not going to do that unless I have too.  I will continue to buy heirloom tomatoes plants but if times are hard I will have the seeds and know how to start them from seeds. On previous blogs, probably several years ago I raised tomatoes from seed and I explained how to do it.  If you are interested you can refer back to those blogs. 

This year I have a huge raised bed for these cantaloupes to grow in and we have put a huge wire panel for them to trellis up.  Last year I didn't have enough room for them and the tomato plants got so big they blocked the sun from getting to the cantaloupes.

Gardening is certainly trial and error and experimenting!

:)