Iimagine that your summer vegetables are in tatters, slowly rotting back from where they came. However, there is one last dance to steal before the month is out: collect any seed that has ripened and save it for next year.
Serious seed-saving requires more than just harvesting. It may, in the case of biennial vegetables, root crops and the like, require allowing plants to grow for another year. Or isolating varieties so they don’t cross-pollinate with others, as well as roguing out – removing any plants that are weaker or not true to their varietal type. (I have two well-thumbed bibles on the subject in my bookcase: Back Garden Seed Saving by Sue Stickland and The Seeds Of Kokopelli by Dominique Guillet.)
For the beginner, though, there’s no harm in chancing your luck. Many heritage varieties remain true to type. Here the most difficult task is merely to collect, dry and store the seed until next year.
Saving the seed of runner beans is easy. Pick the pods that are no longer worth eating but full of fat seeds. Collect the seeds and you’ll almost certainly get a good crop next year; whether they resemble the variety you sowed this year will be another matter. To keep the variety true you will have to separate plants by at least 100 metres; one kilometre would be ideal, but that’s not easy for the urban grower. Still, cross-pollination may result in something lovely, so it’s worth the gamble. Select pods from healthy plants that are typical to the variety. Leave the pods till they are dry and brittle (in wet weather, cut the whole plant off and bring it inside to dry). Shell the pods and reject any that are too small, shrivelled, mouldy or blemished. Store in an airtight container somewhere cool.
For salad plants, perhaps the easiest method is to allow them to self-seed. Any rocket, watercress, land cress, frilly mustards, lamb’s lettuce or coriander that you may have sown for winter salads can be left in place until spring, when they will flower and set seed. Rocket tends to set seed by June, so be prepared to give up space for them. However, a few plants of each will give you ample seed that will store for about five years. The brassica family types (rocket and mustards) may cross-pollinate with each other and you may end up with strange hybrids, but I have always enjoyed their promiscuous ways.
Likewise, many kales left over winter will flower in spring. Either leave them to self-seed, or uproot the whole plant once the seedpods have gone yellow and bring it inside to process.
Chillies are also worth collecting seed from. They will cross-pollinate with other varieties (you need a veil of fleece to isolate particular varieties to keep them true). Still if you grow only one type, life is easy. Once the fruit is ripe, open them, remove the seed, dry on a plate for 24 hours then store.
