Why We Want to Save Seeds
This article will guide you in how to save pea seeds youself.
If we garden then we should strive to learn how to save our own open-pollinated seeds for future plantings. By saving our own seeds we achieve the following:
- We KNOW what our seed will be AND how it will produce.
- By saving our own seed each year, that seed will be better acclimated to OUR area, pests, and diseases and therefore be more vigorous in other words it will be stronger.
- If there is a seed supply shortage or delivery disruption, seed savers should not be affected.
- You can pass on specially adapted seeds to your family as a family heirloom, over time.
- The obvious reason is seeds can be expensive, but saving our own SAVES countless dollars!
If you’d like to learn more about what types of plants one can save seeds from, read this article.
How to Save Your Own Pea Seeds
In the picture on the left, you can see the pea plants are starting to die as the seed pods mature. It’s not a lovely sight, but it is necessary. (FYI: Okra and green beans are the same way.) Also, once temps reach over 85-90 degrees F pea plants, since they’re a cool weather crop, will slow down on flowering and production and start to die. The photo on the right shows the pea plant vines completely dried out and ready for seed harvest. The pea plants will be yellowed or browned and will crumble when you crush a leaf in your hand. If the weather has been quite dry for some time, you may even be able to get the peas to rattle inside the pod just like one would rattle a dried out okra pod.
We want to let the pea seeds mature and dry COMPLETELY on the vine if at all possible. This helps to ensure they will be more viable to germinate when planted.
If your pea vines are nearly completely dry, but there is a heavy rain in the forecast, go ahead and uproot the entire vines and hang somewhere in the dry until the drying is complete.
As you can see from the previous photo, the collection of pea pods are completely dried as are the seeds inside. You want to collect dried pods that are free of disease as some diseases can transfer to the seed causing weakness or premature death of the plant grown from an infected seed . (This is a generality for all types of seed saving.) I choose to only keep seeds from larger healthy looking, disease free pods. You also should save seeds from a variety of different pea plants; this helps to ensure stronger genetics in your next planting.
What to Look for in Dried Pea Seeds
Notice the bright green peas and bright green pea pods in this photo. Also notice the tiny little peas. The tiny little dots of peas are definitely not mature enough to seed save from. While the larger peas are fully developed, and they very well may go ahead and germinate once you dry them out and save them properly, it’s not what I would recommend. Since they didn’t dry completely on the vine, there won’t be as many viable seeds, if any, from that pod. The peas in this photo were picked for eating.
Let’s look at this group of seeds. Look closely. You’ll see the pods and peas are MUCH more dried even though the pods still have a bit of green on them and the seeds are more dull in color; notice how they’re not as bright green as the previous photo? At this stage, you may go ahead and shell them out if you need to and place the partially dried peas somewhere out of sunlight and humidity so they can dry completely. Again, I prefer to let them dry completely on the vine as that gives you the highest chance of viability, but sometimes the weather does not cooperate and you have to harvest a bit early.
This is a photo of perfectly mature seeds ready for harvest. Not only do you want to look for pea pods that are yellowed and browned from completely drying on the vine, you also want your wrinkled pea seeds to not give when you squeeze or when you press your fingernail into each pea seed. If your nail leaves an indention in the pea then the pea seed is not fully dry. This means there is still moisture inside the seed and if stored away, it can mold and spread mold to any good seeds nearby as well as most likely die a premature death upon germinating, if it germinates at all. Continue letting it dry. If the pea seed is hard, wrinkled, and your nail didn’t leave a dent, go ahead and package that seed up, label, and store in a cool, dark place for future plantings.
How to Store Seeds
There are many different ways to store seeds. Some store in mylar bags; paper bags; plastic bags; plastic cases; glass jars; in the fridge; in the freezer; or at room temperature. So how to store them is up to you, but I’ll tell you my experience.
Back in 2011 (currently it is 2023), I bought a couple hundred dollars worth of heirloom, organic seeds. These seeds arrived through the mail and was packaged in small plastic ziploc type baggies with a cardstock information insert inside each bag. I stored those baggies inside two separate gallon glass jars in the freezer. I only pulled out what I needed to grow each year. Somewhere between 2018-2020, I pulled those glass jars out of the freezer and removed all the baggies and stored in a heavy-duty cardboard box. This box was stored in a room in the basement that did not get sunlight and stayed cool and dark. Back in 2021 I removed my seed packages from the heavy-duty cardboard box and organized into a plastic case photo album. Again this plastic case was stored in the same basement room in a dark, cool place. In 2022 and again this year, 2023, I decided to experiment with these old seeds, after all they were 11 and now 12 years old! Everything I grew germinated and produced. I grew peas, winter squash, tomatoes, beans, okra, summer squash, spinach, and pumpkin. I’m sure there was plenty more, but I don’t remember off hand what all I grew. All I know is 100% of each thing I planted germinated, produced, and I even grew it next to its own kind that was new seed purchased that year or the previous year, and it produced equal with the new seed. So don’t throw away your old seed.
I hope you enjoy your seed saving journey!
