Seed saving ?

Hi crew ive never bothered saving veg seeds but ive decided to try for several reasons . I like hot cherry peppers and recently somes seeds in general are hard to get and i was lucky enough this spring to find starts on a farm stand. Im almost positive i should be able to save their seeds because ive never seen hybrid hot cherry peppers? That doesnt mean anything lol but I took seed from a mature pepper and placed on a paper grocery bag. The seeds seemed to turn darker almost immediately to a brownish color they reached this color and haven't progressed any further and are very dry. I cant remember for sure but i thought the last time I had a pack the seed were light. Am i wrong and did i make any mistakes. Thanks

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Go for it.

Not sure on the seed color, all my pepper seeds are a lighter shade than those.

As far as what you will get if those seeds are viable, it depends. If they are indeed from an heirloom variety not a hybrid AND the only pollen in your pepper garden was from cherry peppers, then you should get cherry pepper plants from the seeds. If you are growing others peppers in your garden, you are likely to have gotten at least some cross pollination, bees do a good job of spreading the pollen around.

You’re embarking on a fun experiment at least. You might want to try germinating a few of them now to test viability. Planting a flat of duds in the spring is always a bummer regardless of plant type.

Thank you thats exactly what I was wondering . I do have other varieties of both sweet and hot......something i didn't think about at 1st.

Now im thinking the cross pollination may be why the seeds are so dark....thanks again

Even if the peppers are hybrids you can save seeds. My main pepper is mammoth jalapeno, and my saved seed plants always do just as well or better than the store bought starts.

In round numbers you will usually get 1/4 like the mother, 1/4 like the father and 1/2 true to the hybrid. The first year you grow them out just cull the ones that don't look the same, then you will be real close.

Did someone say seed saving?

xtsho said:

Did someone say seed saving?

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Not all of them are saved seeds, but I have fair to middling sized chest freezer full of seeds. (and there are three kinds of watermelon seeds drying on my desk right now, soon to be added)

Thanks for the replies everyone

I have always either tied a string on the pepper stems and hang them to dry in a window. Or place the pepper in contained and let it dehydrate in my crisper drawer over winter. And I've never had a dark seed germinate. Let us know.

bam0813 said:

Thanks for the replies everyone

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Unfortunately your peppers seeds don't appear viable. They do not look fully mature. They should be plump and the color shouldn't be like that. They should be more yellowish tan.

You need to let the pepper stay on the plant until it is very mature. Just being ready to eat might not be long enough. Although I've had store bought green peppers I tossed in the garden sprout dozens of plants. But it can take a couple months for the seeds to be ready to harvest once the pepper starts forming and the pepper may be old and starting to shrivel up. By then the seeds should be ready to dry and store. If you have more peppers on your plants let a couple of the nicest ones stay on the plant until the end of the season but pick before they start to rot. By then you should have good seeds.

This is what some of the pepper seeds I harvested last year look like for reference. They were all viable this year and I'm growing peppers from those seeds.

Ya i thought the color was off thats what made me wonder. Do the seeds have to be fully mature as in peppers that have a green and red"maturity".my cherry peppers gets picked from when they have red becoming visible. They were the color you described and i expected but started turning that color almost immediately?

bam0813 said:

Ya i thought the color was off thats what made me wonder. Do the seeds have to be fully mature as in peppers that have a green and red"maturity".my cherry peppers gets picked from when they have red becoming visible. They were the color you described and i expected but started turning that color almost immediately?

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Mature seeds will just dry and keep their color. Let the peppers get old on the plant. The reason the seeds turned that color is because they were not mature.

You need to let the fruit mature well past when you would pick it to eat.

It’s amazing how many seeds you can collect by leaving a small plant to go to seed.

I think we’ve been growing the same kale seeds we saved for coming on 5 years now.
Pumpkin is an easy one to save along with most brassicas, peas and beans.