What are good beginner crops for seed saving on your farm?
Choose crops that won’t easily cross with each other.
This definitely means crops that mostly self pollinate (selfers).
But you can also save seed from crops that mostly cross pollinate (crossers) as long as you only have one variety of a species in flower.
Choose crops that you don’t have to do much to get the plant to produce seed.
The easiest are fruiting crops because the seed is in the parts you eat:
- Tomatoes – selfer
- Peppers – selfer (make sure to keep your sweet peppers away from your hot peppers)
- Moschata squash – crosser (these are your butternuts and if you grow only 1 variety, you can save seed)
Only a bit tricker to get to seed are annual leafy greens.
They go to flower after a few weeks of harvest. And as long as you planted the greens early enough, you should get mature seed.
- Lettuce – selfer
- Arugula – crosser
- Brassica rapa greens – crosser
- Brassica juncea greens – crosser
Oh, and a lot of flowers are pretty easy too!
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