How To Collect and Harvest Cucumber Seeds and Tomatoes

When you find a non-hybrid cucumber that you love and want to be sure to have them again the following year, you will want to save seeds and sow your own next year instead of paying to buy another package.  Here is a short video on how to do that....

Gary, the Host of this site, The Rusted Gardener, is very knowledgable about growing a home garden. 

Please note that this cannot be done with every crop, but for many it will work.  Some crops, like tomatoes, must have their blossoms isolated from passing pollinators which can cross-breed that tomato with little effort.  For those, you need to bag your early blossom, using a mesh bag tied around the stem as soon as you spot it and before it forms a fruit to keep all pollinators away from it.

To be sure it gets pollinated, you just have to tap the branch that's holding the blossom at least once a day which pollinates it without critters.

Once the tomato is growing, you can remove the bag, but mark the tomato with a ribbon or cloth so you know that is the tomato from which you must save your seeds, and not any of the other tomatoes.  When the tomato is fully over-ripened, you can save its seeds.

In this photo below I have a newly-forming tomato blossom bagged. Its closed tightly on the top to prevent any critters from getting in the bag and cross-pollinating that blossom.

Do Not Save seeds from any Hybrid variety.  Its already a crossbred plant and if you save those seeds, you cannot be sure what you will get once you plant those seeds.  It could have traits of either parent or even their grandparents, so be very careful which plants you choose to save seeds.

In the case of tomato varieties, you need to save your seeds from an open-pollinated variety or heirloom but none from those marked F1.  An F1 is a crossbred variety.

Enjoy your garden.