Collecting Seeds

The next step in my farming adventure at this stage I guess is to ensure continuity.......... yes seed collection. For most of the plants I still have lots of seeds especially those that I collected from the kitchen. For those that I bought it is increasing in varieties ......... hehe!!!! I also received some more seeds from my sister-in-law from USA recently ....... :) wow seeds every where!!!!

OK my plan is to allow each plant/fruit to grow to maturity so that I can collect the seeds of the breeds that I like most when my stocks run low. For hybrids I will not do it because from what I read the chances of getting freak plants is very high when planting from seeds of hybrid plants.

At the moment I need to collect the seeds from the basil plant that my Princess bought from Cold Storage as seedlings. We have collected more than enough of the leaves for the moment, even distributed some to lucky people .......... organic air dried hand prepared basil .......wow!!! hehe!!! Since there was more than enough to go round, I decided to let it flower so that I can collect the seeds. From what I read the leaves should be collected before the plant start to flower and the flower buds should be removed to extend the period for leaves collection. Leaves collected after the plant had flowered are not as pungent so is of lower quality to people who enjoy basil.

Collecting the seeds is not difficult. The flowers were left to mature on the plant itself ......... deciding when the flowers were ready for harvest is a little difficult since it was my first time. I made two harvest two make sure that the flowers were matured enough. After harvesting, they were left to dry for a couple of days.

To separate the seeds from the pods need to be careful because the seeds are quite fine. Make sure it is not windy or else the wind can just blow them away. Using the thumb and first finger, rubbed the dried pods and the seed will fall out but make sure it falls into a container so that it will not be blown off. Need some basil seeds???