Kitchen Garden Forum

A few people have previously mentioned that they'd sown seeds taken straight from the fruit of a plant (the main example I remember is using fresh tomato seeds, without drying them first).

Can anyone advise whether this works well in general, or is only appropriate for certain plants?

I have some chillies that are fruiting. Other than maybe waiting till Spring to sow them, I wondered if these would work any better fresh, without having to fully dry them out first?

Colin

Colin, I've had self sown pepper seedlings appear with 2 - 3 weeks from pepper seeds thrown onto a mature compost heap. Tomato seeds seem to be very successful if you let all the sticky moisture around them dry off, and I've had occasional squash seeds appear as seedlings if I've thrown some on borders around the garden. I think the problem is that generally the seed collecting season is autumn, which is not the best time for sowing most vegetables unless you've got a heated greenhouse so even if they germinated, you might not have sufficient heat or daylight to bring them to fruiting stage. But give your chilli seeds a try if you've got a warm kitchen ledge which gets plenty of light but doesn't get cold at night. Some seeds do like a cold spell first. whether a couple of days in the fridge would speed the germination process I don't know.

Hi Primrose, yes I forgot to mention that we've got a conservatory that has central heating plus a reasonable amount of light.

The only thing is that the temperature does drop during the night and of course having seedlings coming up during Nov-Feb means they could end up leggy.

I was just interested to see if "fresh" seeds had any extra viability over dried ones (since many people have mentioned how fresh tomato seed seem to germinate "almost immediately"). Getting that result would have been worth it, even with leggy plantlets, since these seeds are quite hard to get hold of.

Any other views on this?

Colin

Hi Colin, Chillies are a perrenial so if you can keep some going over the winter you can take the seeds from a ripe chillie and sow them as I have with good success, or just hang some chillies to dry then remove the seeds just prior to sowing,or just remove the seed and dry it on the windowsill on some tissue its only a few months till sowing time (late january for me) the seed will still be fresh. Ive tried all 3 ways with good success but never as a comparison. All have worked well.Chillies can take quite a long time to germinate I have a hot sheet set at between 12-15 deg C and I always cover with vermiculite and a sheet of thin polythene.The two chilles I keep every year are prairie fire a small type in habit and in fruit, great for 2-3 litre pots, and a long Thai chillie that gets a lot taller 2-3 feet and the chillies are anywhere between 3-6 inches,both types are "red hot"....S.T.

strawberry tart wrote:just hang some chillies to dry then remove the seeds just prior to sowing....the seed will still be fresh

Thanks ST. When I said "fresh", I meant undried, ie. fresh from the plant.

What about the merits of undried seeds


Colin

I probably started waffling there Colin.I have tried all 3 ways and havnt noticed much difference in germination.(for chillies that is.)I think other factors are more important.
If you want to sow fresh then my suggestion in my first line that you try to over winter the plants you have and then sow Fresh/wet seed at the more appropriate time next year when light levels etc will be on the increase.
I dont think there is a general rule of thumb on this,some seeds need chilling first to aid germination, some need a sort of fermentation process to replicate passing through a digestive system, most though are fine with the minimum of fuss.My gut feeling is that drying is the natural process by which seeds survive I dont really see that sowing"wet" seed is an advantage..S.T.

This is not the first time recently that it has been suggested that chilis are perennial.

Before too many people start trying to overwinter their plants - a word of warning:

Many chilis together with sweet peppers are cultivars of Capsicum annuum, which, as the name suggests, is annual. There are other species of which some are perennial. I'm no expert, so have a look at this link which lists the species and the common cultivars, before you decide what to do:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_capsicum_cultivars

As for Colin's original question; it is certainly true that peppers and tomatoes will readily germinate from fresh seed. One of my biggest "weed" problems with polytunnel crops following tomatoes is tomato seedling popping up everywhere - but at least the cold knocks them off. Brassicas will also readily grow from fairly fresh seed (i.e. fallen out of ripe pods) - so will peas and beans (broad and French). But as Primrose warns, what's the point of having plants over winter which will need heat and light, when they can be sown more successfully in the spring?

Hi Alan, some good points there.

The variety I've got is the Trinidad Seasoning pepper (a strain of Capsicum Chinense), not an annual. I have two plants that are almost 5 years old.

The reason I'm asking is that this flowers and produces fruit all through the winter, hence I'm just starting to get a supply of seeds.

I'll proabably only try to grow 3 or 4 plants, so there will be no trouble keeping them indoors, well heated. Given that the others grow quite happily through the winter, I thought I'd try some new ones and get a head start.


Colin

Hi Colin,
Now that you have described the whole situation it becomes clear to me that you could grow from now on because you obviously have the correct conditions for the parent plants to grow. You may need slightly more heat to germinate the seeds but as soon as germination has occurred then the same temperature that you are keeping the parent plants should be fine. Sounds like a very nice pepper to me and very useful at this time of year.
JB.

Alan
Many gardeners I know of have chillis going on for many years and I've been giving it a go myself for the last 2 years.

I have a very productive sweet pepper 'capsicum annum' in my tunnel going into its second winter in there. As well as potted up chilli plants dug out from the garden and some sown in pots in the house.

I agree its name does imply annual and some sources say that only one species of capsicum is perennial but having read in several places of gardeners successfully growing capsicum annums and other peppers as perennials e.g. http://www.growingedge.com/magazine/bac ... AID=110558

It seems worth giving it a go to me. I'm putting together a collection of capsicum seeds and I am planning to have a few plants of all the main 5 species:
Capsicum annum, baccatum, chinense, frutescens and pubescens and see how they go.

P.S If anyone has any capsicum varieties they have true seeds for, i have some interesting edibles if anyone would care to swap.

P.S Colin
I am about to sow some seeds from one of the fresh Trinidad peppers you sent me - so i'll let you know how i get on my quess is they will germinate fine.

Yes, they should be ok. The ones I sowed a week or so ago have all come up. Sadly here in the UK, they'd like a bit more daylight than we can offer in the Winter (but that's my fault!).

Colin

On the issue of "fresh" seed, about a month ago I sowed three pots of sweet pea seeds. One pot of seeds contained seeds from my own plants which I dried off in early autumn. The other two pots were from packeted seed bought around the same time.
My home saved seed has now produced seedlings about four inches high and every seed seems to have germinated. The packeted seed so far is showing poor germination and those seedlings which have emerged are barely an inch tall. Not sure what can be deduced from this but I generally do seem to have better luck from my saved seeds generally, veggies as well as flowers.

I always save sweet pea seed and have always kept it over winter and sown in early spring. If I have bought seed as well, I have always found my saved seed germinated better but never been sure whether this is to do with age/storage or variety.

A month or so ago every gardening magazine seemed to be extolling the virtues of autumn planting so I put a few seeds in a neat circle in a pot of compost. A few days later I had exactly the same neat circle of little plants - and although my saved seed germinates pretty well, I don't think I expect 100%. I've planted another half dozen pots and most have germinated in the same way. Some of the seed was ripe but fresh but some of it was not even quite brown and still seems to have grown well.

So far so good but will they now be ok for the winter in an unheated greenhouse? Should I pinch out the tops now or leave it until growth speeds up in the spring?

best wishes

Heyjude

If any sweat pea expert can answer heyjude's query about when best to pinch out the tops of sweet peas I'd also be interested to know. I've never really got the hang of this and am fearful that if I pinch them off too early the plants will die back and not produce any side shoots.