The weather seems to be turning cooler every day here. We’ve gotten past the first light frosts without any losses, but I’m starting to consider what I should do with all these green tomatoes we still have on the vine. Some of them (like the yellows) seem to be very slowly ripening still. But we have a LONG way to go on the reds. So if you’ve got some great green tomato tips, fill me in!

Today I thought I would revisit the seed saving topic, and lend some advice for those wanting to save seeds from their peppers. As you might have guessed already, I really, really love saving seeds. There’s something satisfying about knowing that the seeds came from something I grew myself, and that you’re getting a bunch of plants for free, just because you take the time to separate out some of the seeds.

From time to time, I just decide to save some seeds on a whim. I’m not always 100% certain what I’m doing, but usually it’s not to hard to sorta figure it out along the way. Most of the time, saving seeds really couldn’t be much more simple. Just grab the seeds and put them out somewhere to dry. Except for tomato seeds that is.

So a few weeks ago, when we were harvesting some of our first jalapenos, I grabbed one of the nicest of them and pulled some of the seeds off as I was cutting them up. The seeds were quite wet and so the drying process turned out a bit wonky. Instead of a nice, white flat seed like you usually see in seed packages, I got tiny, shriveled, dark brown seeds. Not so nice. I’ve never had this sort of drying issue with bell pepper seeds, but the smaller, hotter peppers can be a little bit trickier.

So I decided to try again, this time with seeds that were not quite so damp. They did a bit better and are the loose tan seeds you see in the image above. But still not really the ideal looking seeds since they are all curled and funky.

A few weeks passed and we went to visit some friends who are slowly taking over their family garden, which over the last few years has been very well managed by the grandparents. They grow all sorts of big peppers, and had some sort of Hungarian peppers hanging up in a shed. They’d essentially just stripped the guts out of the pepper and eaten the colorful flesh.

They’ve never steered me wrong in the past, and have been gardening for decades, so I decided to give it a go. I pulled some of the flesh out of the next big jalapenos I harvested and laid it in my usual drying spot. I like using glass canning lids since it’s quite easy to get the seeds off even if they stick a bit.

As you can see, those seeds turned out FANTASTIC! Apparently having the flesh of the pepper on there allows them to dry out more slowly and you just left with a perfect collection of seeds. And this is an even easier process than scraping the seeds out individually.

I’ve also read that you can use a blender to clean the flesh from the seeds and things of that nature. But honestly, I fear my blender would end up eating the seeds. And this method above is just so darn easy, there’s really no reason to bother with the more complicated stuff.

You know the seeds are fully dry if they break when you try to bend them. If they actually bend, they’re not dry yet.

What kind of tricks have you learned recently in for your garden?

Want to join in the garden fun and link to your own blog or images online? You can share about anything related to gardening, old or new posts, from recipes to harvesting to grow reports to DIY projects or inspiration.

Here’s how this works:

PLEASE READ THESE GUIDELINES, especially if you have never linked up before!

That’s it! Share your garden with us by linking up below!