Saving the seeds: Wautoma Cucumber method 2 (part 1)

September 12, 2013 by Elaine Leave a comment

Nice and over ripe, ready for seed harvest

Yesterday, as I was busy catching up with all the jobs I couldn’t do on Tuesday because of the power cut, I happened to glance across at the basket in which my greenhouse grown cucumbers were sitting and realised that one of them looked nice and over ripe, having swapped most of its green colour for yellow. I made a mental note to harvest the seeds later and carried on vacuuming.

Surprisingly, a bit later on I actually remembered that this was a task that needed doing and so I had a quick look at the Real Seed Catalogue instructions for saving cucumber seed and got together everything I needed: cucumber, sharp knife, spoon and a jar with a lid.

First job was to slice the cucumber in half;
Next I had to scoop out the seeds and put them into the jar; and
Then I filled it with water and fastened the lid.

Now the jar is sitting on my kitchen worktop where it will remain for the next couple of days. Apparently the bad seed is full of air and rises to the surface, whilst the good, heavier seed sinks. In a couple of days time I will need to drain off the top half of the water and the bad seed that is sitting there and then refill the jar with water and repeat the process.

Let’s hope there are some good seed in this jar.

Eventually, after a few emptying and refilling stages, I should end up with just the heavier good seed and I will then be able to drain that off, leave it to dry on some kitchen towel or newspaper before letting it dry out completely ready for storage. Fingers crossed that I get some good seed from this one.

I have another tiny cucumber which I am allowing to go ‘over ripe’. This second, much smaller specimen was from one of the outside plants and I’m hoping that I can save some good seed from this one as well, to use for outdoor plants next season. Any seed from this particular cucumber should already be one step more adjusted to outdoor living than the original seed the parent plant was grown from. At least, I think that’s how it works ……….

Part 2 of the seed saving process can be found here.

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