The seeds they sell for planting... What do they do to them?

Also, I am aware that a lot of the fruit and vegetables they sell in stores are hybrids that are sterile.

I save seeds from cosmos, marigold nasturtiums, lupines, baptisia, day lilies, foxgloves and winter them in a paper bag in garage. In March, I start them in small containers inside. I end up with too many flowers; you can save tomato seeds as long as you make sure they are completely dry; my sister has been growing some rare heirloom tomatoes for years from seeds.

I have also found canteloupes growing from my compost, but the fruit never got ripe.

I know that my sister saves other vegetable seeds, the dill reseeds itself, and the Jerusalem artichokes winter over. I’ll check with her when she comes back from Maine.

As you already pointed out, seeds from fresh fruits and vegetables are sometimes sterile, due to hybridization or genetic engineering or some other technique. Companies that grow stuff want you to pay for it, not grow it yourself, so they purposely do stuff to protect their “intellectual property”. As if fruits and vegetable DNA really belongs to anyone—personally I think that practice should be illegal. Anyway, if the fresh fruits and vegetables you’re talking about come from a store, that may be the cause. But it sounds like you already know that.

When you’ve tried this, did you take the fresh seed and put it straight in the ground? You might try drying the seeds instead and planting them the following spring. It seems to me that would more closely mimic the natural cycle that the seeds would follow of wintering over and then sprouting in the spring. Seeds that you buy are always packaged from the previous years’ crop, so it seems that the seed companies follow this practice.

I have successfully planted seeds from purchased vegetables. I’ve only done that once or twice, I guess I got lucky on not getting sterile seeds. I’ve also planted seeds from vegetables I’ve grown in my garden in previous years from purchased seeds. The yields aren’t always very good; the second generation of a hybrid isn’t necessarily the same hybrid. So fruit is often smaller, or the plants and fruit are different in some other way.

They dry them and put them in an envelope. The plants that they get the seeds from are only used to produce seed, they come to full maturity which may be the difference. Much of the produce we get in the store ripens after it is picked (peaches, pears, and plums for example), this means the seed doesn’t get that final bit of nutrients. Maybe this has something to do with their low germination rate.

For better tasting vegetables, try an heirloom seed. Here is one source.

Great info friends.

How should I dry them with out killing them?

The plant will do most of the work for you; keep an eye on the seed pods and notice when they begin to look dry. Take a lupine, for example. The pods start off green and gradually turn gray as the moisturize evaporates.

Nasturtiums drop their petals and have little bumpy seeds about the size of a green pea. Pick them, leave them on a paper towel for several days and then put in envelope.

Marigolds have thin bunches of seeds; when you can pull them out easily, they’re ready to be saved.

@gailcalled is right; some plants will do most of the work, assuming that the birds don’t eat the seeds first. But unlike flower seeds, seeds contained inside fruits and vegetables need to be extracted and dried separately. I’ve just laid seeds (like pumpking seeds) on the kitchen counter on a paper towel until they look good and dry. Do not use artificial heat of any kind; just let them dry naturally.

Tomatoes take a little more work than drying. They have a protective coating that comes off when the tomato rots. You take the seeds and juice surrounding them and let it all ferment for a few days, then rinse and dry.