By Kym Pokorny
As the gardening season winds down and you pick the season’s last vegetables let some plants go to seed and harvest them for planting next year.
“Saving seed can be really fun and is a great way to learn about plants,” said Weston Miller, a horticulturist with Oregon State University Extension Service. “If you choose the right types of vegetables, you can keep them going year after year without buying them again.”
The key to saving seed is selecting open-pollinated or heirloom plants, which produce offspring with the same traits. Hybrids are bred from two different varieties for characteristics like disease resistance or higher yield and won’t come “true to type” in the next generation. Check seed packets or catalog information so that you know which you are buying.
The easiest crops for saving seed are annual plants that self-pollinate like lettuce, beans, peas, peppers, eggplants and tomatoes.