WHY IT IS BETTER TO GROW VEGETABLES FROM YOUR SEEDS

YOUR VEGETABLE SEEDS FOR YOUR GARDEN - THE FIRST STEPS

It all started with a radish. No matter what seeds I buy, I couldn’t grow it at least a little decent: either it will go into the arrow, or it’s all wormy, or it’s small. Somehow you pick up "zamorishki" for okroshka, not to mention how to cut it beautifully into a salad. In short, I couldn't eat enough radishes until I took the risk of trying to get my seeds.

I dug out a couple of the only more or less worthy specimens of the Heat variety from my garden. I still think that this is the best variety for our conditions. The advice recommended keeping the radish dug for seeds in a dark place for two to three days. So I did, however, I forgot and kept it a little longer. As a result, the radish was very wilted and wrinkled, but I still planted it. And after a while, two wonderful bushes grew, which gave numerous pods with seeds by autumn (photo 1).

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These plants did not require special care, however, the pods did not ripen at the same time, but this does not matter: it was not at all difficult for me to spend several minutes a couple of times a week picking them. At the end of the season, before frost, the radish bushes had to be pulled out and hung in a shed so that the remnants of the seeds could ripen safely. But I peeled the pods much later, slowly, when I had free time to sit at the TV. All seeds were calibrated, i.e. she set aside only worthy, large ones, and managed to plant all the little things and greenish ones in the garden before winter in one line.

Yes, all this took time, but what a wonderful radish (photo 2) grew the next year! Even from waste seeds planted in late autumn, it came out better than from purchased seeds (photo 3). So we ate our fill of radishes that year, and there were still a lot of seeds left, which would be quite enough for the next year. But the next season, I still repeated the experience, planting a couple more large root crops on the seeds - I really wanted to replenish my seed fund.

But last summer I did not receive my seeds. Probably because of the abnormal heat, or maybe because of the two plants, for some reason only one grew strong, and the pods turned out to be empty. Probably radishes require cross-pollination. Therefore, the stock of seeds was very handy.

YOUR BEET AND CARROT SEEDS

Having made friends with radishes, I began to master the technique of growing seeds of other crops. Somehow I already wrote about my failures with carrots - I didn’t succeed in any way. Purchased seeds stubbornly did not germinate, so I decided to get my own, leaving the three most beautiful root crops from the harvest harvested in the fall. But I didn’t know what to do: plant immediately in the fall or postpone until spring? Different sources write differently, and if I didn’t immediately conduct a double experiment, no, I didn’t guess. I planted it before winter and was left without seeds. In the spring, these three carrots did not sprout, and there was not even a tail left of them in the ground - either they ate the mice, or they simply rotted.

In the fall, I again selected the three best root crops for seeds and stored them in the cellar until spring, putting them in a separate bag, but I didn’t cut off the tails and tops much. In the spring, I planted them in a hole at a distance of 20 cm from each other.

In summer, as well as over radishes, she didn’t “dance” much, she only cut off extra side flower umbrellas, leaving three on each plant: they say that in this case the seeds are larger (photo 4).

By autumn, the seeds ripened (photo 5), which I have been using successfully for several years. It seems to be a variety of Children's sweetness.

At the same time, she mastered the cultivation of her own beet seeds Detroit. It turned out to be quite simple: according to the same scheme as carrots, even easier, since I did not cut off any flowers, but allowed the beet plants to run amok (photo 6).

Oh, what, it turns out, they smell! I never thought that simple and nondescript beetroot flowers smell so pleasant!

In the fall, I simply pulled out the plants, dried them for some time under a canopy on the table (photo 7) and shook the seeds, and there were so many of them that it seems to be enough for 10 years to come (photo 8), so I distribute them to friends.

Inspired by my small victories, I decided to get my own eggplant seeds, for which I marked the most beautiful fruit with a string so that no one plucked ahead of time (photo 9). By the way, this is how I mark peppers left for seeds, and tomatoes, and cucumbers, because they must definitely ripen on a bush, and then ripen at home.

When the eggplant finally dried up (already at home), I cut it lengthwise into several parts and carefully scraped out the seeds with a spoon, dried them on a napkin and poured them into a paper envelope: this is how I store all the seeds.

But unlike carrots, radishes and beets, growing eggplants from their own seeds did not affect the yield in any way.

Seedlings grow wonderful, and then in the open field, as before, half of the plants bear fruit weakly or do not bear fruit at all and wither away. Maybe there was cross-pollination with a hybrid? In fact, I never take seeds from hybrids marked F1, but you plant hybrids and non-hybrids not in different parts of the garden. In short, you will have to continue the experiment with eggplants, as well as with Exhibition onions. I really like this variety, and I manage to grow it wonderfully, as I have already written about. But the trouble is, purchased seeds do not have good germination, and often do not germinate at all, although they are not cheap. That's why I decided to grow my own.

I selected three worthy bulbs and kept until spring in the cellar, in a bucket with a leaky lid. Moreover, the bulbs are very well preserved, although everywhere they write that the Exhibition is stored poorly, and we always tried to eat it before the New Year. In the spring, the bulbs were planted in the garden, although only two out of three gave an arrow with seeds. Beautiful flower umbrellas were high - I had to tie them up (photo 10). When the seeds began to turn black, I tied the balls-heads with gauze so that they would not crumble to the ground. Later, the plants were dried at home - the seeds were easily poured and winnowed from the husk.

Yes, they had good germination, but the bulbs that grew out of them the next season were for some reason two to three times smaller than usual. Either the summer of 2021 was “non-onion” due to the heat, or it is still a hybrid, albeit without the F1 mark. Has anyone else tried growing their Exhibition seeds? Happened?

Might be useful for you too! The main PRINCIPLE of selection for YOUR VEGETABLE seeds in the POMIDOM.RU nursery

Reference by topic: Own beet seeds - cultivation, collection and selection

YOUR OWN PEPPER AND TOMATO SEEDS

There are also problems with growing peppers. Who has not come across such an incident when, when buying seeds, you look for a beautiful name and photo, and as a result - a complete disappointment, even with those varieties that other gardeners praise very much. That is why I decided to create my own seed fund of this culture, but so far without success. It is not at all difficult to get seeds from a beautiful sample, but whether a good pepper will grow from them next year is a big question.

Once a friend advised me to plant freshly harvested seeds, so I did. Just on March 8, the most beautiful multi-colored peppers were bought to the table, and it was from them that I collected the seeds, planting them on seedlings on the growing moon. And that year the peppers grew just gigantic (photo 11)!

I deliberately left a few pieces in the forks of the bush to ripen for seeds, thinking that now it would certainly be possible to envy my seeds! It is believed that if you want to get a bigger harvest from a bush, do not leave the ovary in the fork: it takes strength from others. But if for seeds, then a pepper that has grown in a fork is just right!

But next year, nothing special from those seeds grew, there were very few fruits and not at all of the same size. Probably, the source material was hybrid. So the experiment continues with pepper.

The seed fund of tomatoes is also in the process of formation. I try not to buy hybrids, because I didn’t notice any special charm or high yield in them.

Every year I buy several varieties, I test the ones I like for another two or three years, I take some into the collection - for example, I plant varieties Negrotenok and Peremoga every year.

I don’t know some names, because friends brought fruits, and some had to be abandoned for one reason or another. Well, it's like everyone else.

First I also mark the tomato I liked on the bush with a red bow, then I ripen it on the windowsill, cut it, pick out the seeds with a spoon, put it in a jar of water and leave it under a glass lid for several days in a dark place until soured (it helps from various diseases). I forgot several times, and even mold appeared in the jar, but full-fledged tomato seeds still sank to the bottom and remained quite healthy and of high quality.

Over the years, I managed to collect my own lettuce and spinach seeds without any problems - now they will also be enough for many years to all my friends. And they do not lose their germination for a very long time.

Dill grows by itself. I don’t grow peas and beans specifically for seeds, unless you accidentally miss some pods without collecting them in time - here are the seeds for you! With pumpkins and zucchini, everything is also simple: you select from those you like, because the fruits are stored almost until spring, and by this time the seeds are fully ripe there. True, “parents” are not always repeated either.

Rђ RІRѕS, collect cabbage seeds I have not yet been honored - it seems to me very troublesome, and only the Aggressor grows more or less successfully with us, but this is a hybrid. I don’t collect my own corn seeds either: purchased ones are quite satisfied, and again, they are all hybrids. And now cucumbers are also almost all F1, we don’t buy others.

You won't get seeds from them.

In general, I believe that having your own seeds of at least some crops is already a big deal. And it turned out that it is not difficult at all!