8 Best Vegetables for Saving Seeds—and How to Collect Them to Grow Next Year

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are one of the best plants for seed saving, in part because you can collect tomato seeds and still eat the tomatoes they came from. Just wait for fruits to fully ripen on the plant, scoop the seeds out, and let them ferment in water for a few days to remove the pulpy seed covering. Then, rinse the seeds in a strainer, let them fully dry on a paper towel or paper plate, and tuck them into labeled and dated paper envelopes to store.

Peas and Beans

To save the seeds of peas and beans, all you need to do is let the pods dry fully on the plant until you hear the beans or peas rattling inside the pods. Once this occurs, carefully remove the pods from the plant. Split them open and discard the pods. Let the seeds dry on a tray for a few more days before storing them.

Squash, Pumpkins, and Melons

Squash, pumpkins, and other cucurbits such as zucchini potentially cross-pollinate if planted within half a mile to a mile of each other. If you (or your neighbor) grow different varieties and you want to get seeds for saving, you should cover all the plants of the same variety with netting that keeps pollinating insects out and hand-pollinate their flowers.

When harvest time arrives, pick your fully ripened squash, pumpkins, or melons, separate the seeds, and give them a good rinse to remove any pulpy residue. To get the best germination results, save only the plumpest seeds and only the dark seeds from watermelons, as white watermelon seeds aren’t mature enough to sprout.

Cucumbers

Cucumbers only cross-pollinate with themselves, so if you just grow one type of cucumber, you don't need to take any extra steps to prevent cross-pollination.

Cucumbers for eating are harvested when they’re still a bit immature and their skins are green. However, if you want to collect cucumber seeds, you’ll need to leave your cucumbers on the vine until their skins toughen up and turn a deep, golden-yellow color. Once this occurs, pick the fully ripened cucumbers and scoop out the seeds. Process the seeds using the same fermentation technique as for tomato seeds.

Peppers

Sweet peppers, such as bell peppers, as well as hot peppers, cross-pollinate if planted within 400 feet, so if you want to save the seeds, you will also have to take some precautions. The easiest way is to cover the peppers of the same variety with insect-proof netting and hand-pollinate the flowers with a paintbrush.

Harvest the peppers when they develop their full mature color and their skins begin to soften. Fully ripe peppers develop red, orange, yellow, and other brightly-toned skins, while peppers that are still green are technically immature, and their seeds may not sprout as well. Scoop out the seeds and let them dry fully before storage.

Radishes

To collect radish seeds, you’ll need to let your plants mature long past the point when you’d harvest radishes for their edible roots. As they mature, radishes will flower and then produce small seed pods atop their stems. Gather them like bean pods as they dry.

Keep in mind that radish pods will often burst when they’re fully mature, so you may want to collect them directly into a paper bag to avoid accidentally losing seeds while you collect them.

Okra

Edible okra is usually harvested when the pods are about 3 inches long. But okra pods should be allowed to get as big as possible, and then dry fully on the plant if you want to collect viable seeds.

Once the pods are dry and beginning to crack open, twist the pods off the plant, and crack them open to collect the seeds inside. Let the seeds dry indoors for a few days before you store them.

Lettuce

To avoid cross-pollination, different varieties of lettuce should be separated by at least 10 feet in the garden.

Wait for your lettuce plants to bolt or flower. Once the flowers have dried, the seeds are ready to be collected. Like dandelion seeds, mature lettuce seeds have a bit of fluff attached to them. Remove it by gently rubbing the seeds in a sieve before storing them.