How to Dry Vegetable Seeds

For gardeners, harvesting vegetable seeds will allow you to regrow these plants over and over again. For farmers, harvesting seeds is a great way to save a good amount of money. However, in order to harvest vegetable seeds, these seeds must be dried thoroughly in order to prevent them from rotting. Under the suitable conditions, you can dry vegetable seeds and store them for up to 10 years.

Things You'll Need

• Paper towel
• Moisture-proof storage container

Instructions

1. Consider how long you can maintain these seeds without any germination. You need to take into consideration the moisture of the seeds and the containers in which they are stored.

2. Make sure that you are planting clean and fresh seeds so that your outcome will be even better as they produce quality seeds themselves. After planting, if you find that some seeds have yet to germinate, store them under suitable conditions so you can plant them next season.

3. Most of the vegetable seeds and flower seeds are stored at room temperatures in places like Montana, Colorado and Midwestern states successfully. Be sure to store excess seeds and use them whenever necessary.

4. Dry vegetable seeds on a paper towel in the sun. Some seeds must be separated from the pulp before drying. These seeds can be separated from the pulp by placing the pulp in a water-filled bowl and waiting until the seeds fall to the bottom. This process might take several days, but the seeds will be fine.

5. Store these vegetable seeds in a moisture-proof container. Be more protective by using sealed cans or jars instead of using normal plastic bags.

Tips & Warnings

• Some seeds, like peas, beans and corn, dry automatically if you leave them out four weeks after they are ready for regular consumption. If you don't have the patience to dry those seeds under sunlight then they can be heated at 100 degree for around six hours. If seeds are thoroughly dried, you will be able to plant them in a humid area properly. Seeds that scatter like okra, onion, lettuce, beets and carrots need to be harvested by placing bags over seed heads to catch the seeds.

• Don't ever use a microwave oven to dry seeds.

References

• Saving Vegetable Seeds
• The Art of Saving Vegetable Seeds