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How to harvest seeds from your garden to replant next year

Tomato seeds have a special coating that keeps them from germinating.

Flower heads should be dried up. Let the seed and seed pods d.ry on the plants

By Marjie Ducey
Omaha World-Herald
Sept 4, 2020

Excerpt:

For gardeners lamenting the end of growing season after falling in love with a beautiful flower or tasty tomato, there’s a way for them to live another day.

Saving seeds from those favorites can be a fun experiment, said John Porter, urban agriculture educator for the Nebraska Extension in Douglas-Sarpy Counties. Just know you might get some surprises.

Unless the plant that you are collecting seeds from is an heirloom, it could end up looking like the mother or father plant of the hybrid, a mix of both or something new. Most flowers and vegetables that are new are hybrids, created from a mix of several other plants.

“Some will look like the milkman,” he said.

Tomatoes and beans don’t easily cross-pollinate, but with vegetables like squash and cucumbers, you can get surprises from miles away because of the work done by pollinators. Pumpkins and zucchini elicit the most calls because they are the same species and cross easily.

“That’s a common one that people freak out about all the time,” Porter said. “You’ll still get something that’s perfectly fine to eat.”

Read the complete article here.