Save your Zinnia Seeds

Our ancestors saved seeds because they had to. They didn't have the luxury of purchasing seeds online or in catalogs. If they were going to grow pretty much any crop, saving and preserving seed was imperative.

But seed saving has been largely forgotten in our modern world as it has become so easy to purchase pretty much anything online. I can log onto eBay or Johnny's Seed and have pretty much any kind of seed shipped to my house in just a few days.

I've tied strings aroung my favorite zinnia plants so as to only collect from those

But there are benefits to saving your own seed that you can't replicate by purchasing from someone else.

As I see it, the greatest advantage of seed saving is that, over time, genetic drift will result in an accumulation of adaptations that could make your crop distinct and possibly more regionally adapted. In other words, you will have something no one else has, something specifically adapted to your garden. Simply by collecting from the best "survivors," you will unwittingly change their genetics!

For example, it is possible to create new lines (or strains) of zinnas by saving the most regionally adapted specimens. You can select and amplify traits such as flower color and disease resistance if you carefully collect only from the desired plants. In the photo to the right, I've marked my favorite Zinnia colors. After the flowers have long faded, I'll remember which plants to collect from.

Letting the seed dry out is important. Sun drying also works.

Seed saving doesn't have to be overly complex. Some people go to great pains to sift and clean their seeds, but I'm lazy; I save the entire dried flower or chaff, which contains the seed. But you must allow the flowers to dry on the plant. When they ripen and mature, I cut them off and put them in a paper bag. I then lay them out on a newspaper or towel and let them dry inside my house. The aim is to dehydrate them out as much as possible before you store them in a paper bag or envelope. It's crucial that you store them in a material that breathes, like cloth or paper. Plastic bags don't breathe, and your seeds will eventually mold!

So the process is very simple. Just remember to write the date and identification of your seed. You can then store them for years, although, I have best results from using Zinnia seeds that are no more than 2 years old.