Saving seeds connects you to thousands of years of agricultural tradition and saves real money. A single packet of heirloom tomato seeds costs five dollars and contains 25 seeds. Save seeds from your best plants for three seasons and you will never buy those seeds again — and you will have seeds adapted to your specific soil and climate. Here is how to do it for the three easiest crops to save from.
Tomatoes
Only save seeds from open-pollinated or heirloom varieties — hybrids like Better Boy will not reliably reproduce true to type from saved seed. Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, and Mortgage Lifter are all excellent seed-saving candidates common in NW Georgia gardens.
Choose your best-looking fruit from your healthiest plant at full ripeness — even slightly past what you would eat. Scoop the seeds and gel into a jar with a little water. Let the jar sit at room temperature for two to three days, stirring daily. The viable seeds will sink to the bottom while the gel and hollow seeds float. Pour off the top, rinse the sunk seeds through a fine strainer, and spread them on a paper plate or coffee filter to dry completely — at least two weeks. Store in a labeled paper envelope in a cool, dry, dark location.
Properly dried tomato seeds stored in good conditions last four to six years.
Peppers
Pepper seed saving is even simpler than tomatoes. Allow peppers to fully ripen on the plant — for bell peppers that means waiting until they turn red, orange, or yellow depending on variety. For hot peppers, let them ripen fully and begin to dry on the plant if possible.
Cut the pepper open and scrape the seeds from the central core onto a paper plate. Spread them in a single layer and let them dry in a warm spot out of direct sunlight for two weeks. Test for dryness by trying to bend a seed — fully dry seeds snap rather than bend. Store in paper envelopes the same as tomatoes.
Wear gloves when saving seeds from hot peppers. Capsaicin soaks into skin and touching your eyes hours later is not pleasant.
Beans
Beans are the easiest of all because the plant does most of the work for you. To save bean seeds, simply leave your best-looking bean pods on the plant past the eating stage. Let them stay on the vine until the pods turn yellow, then papery brown, and the seeds inside rattle when you shake the pod.
Pull the pods and shell them on a dry day. Spread seeds on a flat surface for another week of indoor drying before storing. Properly dried bean seeds last three to five years in storage.
Storage tips for all seeds
The enemies of seed viability are heat, moisture, and light. Store seeds in paper envelopes — not plastic, which traps moisture — inside a sealed glass jar with a small desiccant packet. Keep the jar in the back of a refrigerator or in a consistently cool closet. Label everything with the variety name and year saved. Future-you will be grateful.
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