[annekevdbroek]

I have my first vegetable garden up and running. I'm so happy with it - I've never had a vegetable garden before. At last we live in a house with a large sunny yard. We are in TX so the garden is still going strong, and might do so until Feb or so. Anyhow, I wanted to find out if there is a method of harvesting some seeds so I can plant again in the spring without having to layout major $$$$$ for seeds again. I have zuchinni, lettus, tomatoes, various peppers, pumpkins (also took seeds from the Halloween ones from the store), sunflowers, radish, carrots, cabbages, squash.

Also - any good vegetable gardening books you can recommend?

Thanks!

 

[nwaddellr]

Are your vegetable types heirlooms or hybrids? Hybrids (which is what you often get from the store) won't grow from seed - you'll need to buy seedlings or seeds again next year. Heirlooms will grow from seed no problem.

 

[annekevdbroek]

I'd say it is half and half - I'll have to go through the seed packs and check. I think the tomatoes are hybrids since they are special to be very heat tolerant. The rest I'm not sure about - I guess I'll do heirloom next year if at all possible. So, how do I harvest the seeds? Do I need to wait until a certain point? Let them dry? How do I store them?

 

[nwaddellr]

Pretty much just wait until the fruit/vegetable is ripe, separate the seeds, and let them dry and they *should* work (I'm saying this without ever doing it myself, but that's what works for flowers so why not for veggies too!)