Turn garden leftovers into seeds for next year

At the end of the year, when nights begin to get cold and the warmth of the sun becomes scarce, you’ll likely find leftovers in your garden that are either overripe, or found when clearing out for the season. While these spares can be composted whole, with a little bit of effort, you can get enough seeds for next year and more. One pepper can replace a gardens worth of plants, and a single tomato contains more than you’ll need for years to come.

This year, a handful of Garden Salsa peppers, several Black Cherry tomatoes and a single Gypsy pepper were still on plants, or nearby and still intact.

To save seeds from peppers, break open the peppers with your hands. Make sure to break the peppers open with your hands and not with a knife, to ensure that seeds aren’t broken while cutting. Remove the seeds from the center of the pepper, and let them fall into a bowl of water. Once all of your peppers of the same variety have been harvested from, pour out the water over a paper towel, and let dry, and compost the food waste.

To harvest seeds from tomatoes, similarly to saving seeds from peppers, break tomatoes open over a bowl of water, then pour the seed water over a paper towel to dry. For tomatoes, you can cut them to help get to the seeds easier, with less worry of seed damage than with peppers.

Once seeds are dried out, store them in a cool and dry area, overwintering them for the following year. While you don’t have to do this process, it is a good way to save some money and get a head start on next year. Additionally, if you have a specific heirloom variety that you like, this is a guaranteed way to ensure that the variety will be available next year. Have you finished your fall cleanup yet?