Seed saving
Which seed you can save, and which you only think you can
Collecting seed is easy for every crop on this page. Collecting seed that grows back into the plant you started with is easy for four of them. The difference is four fixed facts about the species, and nobody tells you which is which.
The four things that decide it
- How the flower gets pollinated
- The single most load-bearing fact. A self-pollinating crop — tomato, pea, bean, lettuce — fertilises itself before the flower even opens, so it comes true in an ordinary garden with no planning at all. An insect- or wind-pollinated crop is crossed by whatever else is flowering nearby, including in gardens you cannot see.
- Whether it sets seed in its first year
- Annuals flower and seed in one season. Biennials — carrot, beet, onion, cabbage — make the edible part in year one and flower in year two, so saving their seed means keeping roots or plants alive through a winter and giving up the harvest. That is a commitment, not a technique.
- How far it must be from its own relatives
- This is where good intentions die. Squash crosses with other squash and with ornamental gourds. Beet crosses with chard. Every cabbage-family vegetable crosses with every other one. Carrot crosses with the Queen Anne's lace on the verge outside. Where the honest answer is “further than a garden allows”, the table below says that instead of printing a number that implies permission.
- How many plants you need
- The most-skipped number. Saving from the two best plants is the obvious instinct and it is how a variety degrades: too small a population inbreeds, and the damage shows up a few generations later as weak, uneven seedlings. Some crops need twenty plants, some need eighty.
Every crop we grow, easiest first
Ordered by how likely the seed is to come back true, not by how much work it is. Those are different questions and conflating them is why people lose a variety without ever noticing.
| Crop | Saving it | Pollination | Seed in | Keep it apart by | Plants needed | Seed keeps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TomatoesSolanum lycopersicum | easy | Self-pollinating | Year one | 10 to 50 feet between varieties, or nothing at all if you only grow one | A handful of plants; even one will do at a pinch | 4–6 yrs |
| PeasPisum sativum | easy | Self-pollinating | Year one | 10 to 20 feet, and mostly a formality | 10 to 20 plants | 3–4 yrs |
| BeansPhaseolus vulgaris | easy | Self-pollinating | Year one | 10 to 20 feet; bumblebees cross them occasionally | 10 to 20 plants | 3–4 yrs |
| LettuceLactuca sativa | easy | Self-pollinating | Year one | 10 to 25 feet | 12 to 20 plants | 3–5 yrs |
| PotatoesSolanum tuberosum | easy | Clonal | Any year | Not applicable — a clone cannot cross with anything | As many tubers as you want to plant | Not from seed |
| Summer squashCucurbita pepo | moderate | Insect-crossed | Year one | Half a mile, or hand-pollinate and tape the flower shut | 6 to 12 plants | 4–6 yrs |
| CucumberCucumis sativus | moderate | Insect-crossed | Year one | Quarter to half a mile, or hand-pollinate | 6 to 12 plants | 5–6 yrs |
| Green onionsAllium fistulosum | moderate | Insect-crossed | Any year | Keep one bunching variety at a time and it is a non-issue | 20 or more plants | 1–2 yrs |
| RadishRaphanus sativus | moderate | Insect-crossed | Year one | Half a mile, and it crosses with wild radish | 20 to 40 plants | 4–5 yrs |
| Bulb onionsAllium cepa | hard | Insect-crossed | Year two | Further than a garden allows if a neighbour is flowering onions | 20 to 40 bulbs | 1–2 yrs |
| CarrotsDaucus carota subsp. sativus | hard | Insect-crossed | Year two | Half a mile, and wild carrot grows on every roadside | 20 to 50 roots | 2–3 yrs |
| BeetsBeta vulgaris | hard | Wind-crossed | Year two | A mile or more; pollen travels on the wind | 20 to 30 roots | 4–5 yrs |
| SpinachSpinacia oleracea | hard | Wind-crossed | Year one | A mile or more | 30 or more plants | 3–5 yrs |
| KaleBrassica oleracea | hard | Insect-crossed | Year two | Grow only one Brassica oleracea for seed in a given year | 20 to 80 plants | 4–5 yrs |
| CabbageBrassica oleracea | hard | Insect-crossed | Year two | Grow only one Brassica oleracea for seed in a given year | 20 to 80 plants | 4–5 yrs |
| BroccoliBrassica oleracea var. italica | hard | Insect-crossed | Year one | Grow only one Brassica oleracea for seed in a given year | 20 or more plants | 4–5 yrs |
| ChardBeta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris | hard | Wind-crossed | Year two | A mile or more, and it crosses with every beet | 20 to 30 plants | 4–5 yrs |
Figures are home-scale: enough to keep a variety recognisably itself, not enough to certify it commercially. Seed companies use far larger isolation distances because they are answering a different question. Viability assumes cool, dry, dark storage — warm or damp halves it, and a germination test on a damp saucer beats any table, including this one.
Start with these 5
All four are self-pollinating annuals, and that is not a coincidence — it is the entire reason they are easy. They set seed in one season, they fertilise themselves before the flower opens, and a normal garden gives them all the isolation they need.
Tomatoes
The best crop to learn on. The flower pollinates itself before it opens, so crossing is rare. Scoop the seed and pulp into a jar, let it ferment two or three days until a skin forms, then rinse and dry — the fermentation removes the germination-inhibiting gel and takes out some seed-borne disease with it.
Burr records tomato seed as keeping five years, and twenty-one thousand seeds to the ounce. Modern storage advice puts it at four to six, so he was right.
Peas
Self-pollinating and almost never crossed by insects. Leave pods on the vine until they are brown, dry and rattle. The only real risk is weather — pods left through a wet spell sprout in place, so bring them in and finish drying under cover if autumn arrives early.
Beans
As easy as peas and handled the same way — dry on the plant, shell, finish indoors. Bumblebees do work bean flowers and will occasionally cross two varieties, so if you are keeping something rare, put a different crop between the rows.
Lettuce
Easy, but it takes patience and space: the plant you are saving from must bolt, run up to three or four feet, and flower, which means giving up that plant for most of a season. Seed ripens unevenly — shake the heads into a bag every few days rather than waiting for one harvest.
Potatoes
The odd one out on this table, because a potato is not propagated from seed at all. You save tubers, and a saved tuber is a clone — genetically identical to its parent, which is why potato varieties persist unchanged for centuries and also why a disease in your stock stays in your stock. Save from healthy plants only, keep them cool and dark, and buy in certified seed every few years to reset. True potato seed exists, comes from the little green fruits, and produces something entirely unlike the parent — which is how new varieties are bred and not how you keep one.
Burr describes 49 varieties in 1863, and the names are the pleasure of the list: Peach-blow, Jenny Lind, Garnet Chili, Lady's Finger, Nova-Scotia Blue. Garnet Chili matters beyond its name — it is a parent of Early Rose, and through it of a great deal of what is grown now.
Heirloom varieties, and what we can honestly say was lost
You will have seen a statistic — that some enormous percentage of vegetable varieties disappeared during the twentieth century. We are not going to repeat it, because every version we chased traces back to a comparison nobody has since reproduced, and quoting it would be exactly the kind of thing this site exists not to do.
What we can offer instead is a real count from a real book. Fearing Burr's Field and Garden Vegetables of America set out in 1863 to describe every vegetable then grown in American gardens — its title page claims nearly eleven hundred species and varieties — and it is public domain and free to read in full. We have been counting its variety lists chapter by chapter. 437 varieties across 17 crops so far, arrived at by listing every heading rather than by estimating.
Three things stop that being a loss figure, and all three are worth knowing. Several lists are padded with field crops grown for stock rather than the table. We have not yet checked the names against what seed houses sell today. And Burr says plainly in his own preface that local, undescribed varieties never reached him — so the real 1863 diversity was larger than his book, and any loss calculated against his total understates it.
Tomato
22 described in 1863Apple-tomato · Bermuda · Fejee · Fig-tomato · Giant · Grape or Cluster · Large Red · Large Red Oval-fruited · Large Yellow · Mexican · Perfected · Red Cherry · Red Plum · Round Red · Round Yellow · Seedless · Tree-tomato · White · White's Extra Early · Yellow Cherry · Yellow Pear-shaped · Yellow Plum
All twenty-two are kitchen varieties — the tomato had no field-crop use in 1863. Burr notes its cultivation had increased fourfold in the previous twenty years, so this is a snapshot of a crop that was still new to most American tables.
Beet
25 described in 1863Bark-skinned · Barrott's New Crimson · Bassano · Cattell's Dwarf Blood · Cow-horn Mangel Wurzel · Early Mangel Wurzel · Early Blood Turnip-rooted · German Red Mangel Wurzel · German Yellow Mangel Wurzel · Half Long Blood · Improved Long Blood · Long Blood · Long Red Mangel Wurzel · Long White Green-top Mangel Wurzel · Long Yellow Mangel Wurzel · Pine-apple Short-top · Red Castelnaudary · Red Globe Mangel Wurzel · White Globe Mangel Wurzel · White Sugar · White Turnip-rooted · Wyatt's Dark Crimson · Yellow Castelnaudary · Yellow Globe Mangel Wurzel · Yellow Turnip-rooted
Ten are mangel wurzels grown for stock and one is a sugar beet, so the garden-beet count is fourteen. Naming them rather than hiding them in a total is the difference between a census and a talking point.
Carrot
16 described in 1863Altringham · Early Frame · Early Half-long Scarlet · Early Horn · Flander's Large Pale Scarlet · Long Orange · Long Red Belgian · Long Yellow · Long Surrey · Long White · New Intermediate · Purple or Blood Red · Short White · Studley · White Belgian · White Belgian Horn
Several — the Belgians, Long White, Long Yellow — were field carrots for stock rather than the table. Burr treats feeding carrots to horses and dairy cows as an ordinary use, and reports that they colour and flavour butter.
Broccoli
25 described in 1863Ambler's Early White · Chappell's Large Cream-coloured · Danish, or Late Green · Dwarf Brown Close-headed · Early Purple · Elletson's Gigantic Late White · Fine Early White · Frogmore Protecting · Gillespie's Broccoli · Green Cape · Green Close-headed Winter · Hammond's White Cape · Kent's Late White · Kidderminster · Late Dwarf Purple · Miller's Late White · Mitchell's Ne Plus Ultra · Mitchinson's Penzance · Portsmouth · Purple Cape · Snow's Superb White Winter · Sulphur or Brimstone Broccoli · Ward's Superb · White Cape · Willcove
Not one is the plant now sold as broccoli. Every name here belongs to the older overwintering heading type, and most carry English breeders' names — the green Italian sprouting sort does not appear in the book at all.
Lettuce
50 described in 1863Brown Dutch · Brown Silesian or Marseilles Cabbage · Brown Winter Cabbage · Early or Summer Cape · Early Simpson · Early White Spring or Black-seeded Gotte · Endive-leaved · English Endive-like Curled-leaved · Green Curled · Green Winter Cabbage · Hammersmith Hardy · Ice Cabbage · Imperial Head · India · Large Brown Cabbage or Mogul · Large Red Cabbage · Large Winter Cabbage or Madeira · Malta or Ice Cabbage · Neapolitan · Palatine · Spotted Cabbage (black-seeded) · Spotted Cabbage (white-seeded) · Stone Tennis-ball · Summer Cabbage · Tennis-ball · Turkey Cabbage · Versailles · Victoria or Red-bordered · White Gotte (black-seeded) · White Gotte (white-seeded) · White Silesian, or White Batavian · White Stone Cabbage · Yellow-seeded Brown Dutch · Alphange or Florence Cos (black-seeded) · Alphange or Florence Cos (white-seeded) · Artichoke-leaved Cos · Bath Green Cos · Brown Cos · Gray Paris Cos · Green Paris Cos · Green Winter Cos · Monstrous Brown Cos · Oak-leaved Cos · Red Winter Cos · Spotted Cos (black-seeded) · Spotted Cos (white-seeded) · Waite's White Cos · White Brunoy Cos (black-seeded) · White Brunoy Cos (white-seeded) · White Paris Cos
The longest list of any crop we have counted: thirty-three cabbage-heading lettuces and seventeen cos. Burr's three further entries — Endive-leaved, Perennial and Spinach Lettuce — are excluded because they are separate species rather than garden lettuce varieties. Note how many are named for winter: this was a crop expected to stand in the ground, not one bought in a bag.
Cabbage
36 described in 1863Atkins's Matchless · Barnes's Early · Bergen Drumhead · Champion of America · Early Battersea · Early Cornish · Early Drumhead · Early Dutch Twist · Early Hope · Early Low Dutch · Early Nonpareil · Early Sugar-loaf · Early Wakefield · Early York · East Ham · Green Glazed · Large Late Drumhead · Large York · Large Ox-heart · Marblehead Mammoth Drumhead · Mason · Pomeranian · Premium Flat Dutch · St. Denis · Shilling's Queen · Small Ox-heart · Stone-Mason · Sutton's Dwarf Comb · Vanack · Vaugirard Cabbage · Waite's New Dwarf · Winnigstadt · Early Dwarf Red · Large Red Dutch · Superfine Black · Utrecht Red
Thirty-two common sorts and four red ones, which Burr notes were used mainly for salad and pickling. Savoys, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts and colewort each get their own chapter — so this count is head cabbage alone, and the cabbage family as a whole runs far longer.
Summer squash
10 described in 1863Apple Squash · Bush Summer Warted Crookneck · Early White Bush Scolloped · Early Yellow Bush Scolloped · Egg-squash · Green Bush Scolloped · Green-striped Bergen · Large Summer Warted Crookneck · Orange · Variegated Bush Scolloped
Burr describes thirty squashes and files them the way growers spoke of them rather than botanically: ten summer varieties and twenty autumn and winter sorts. Only the summer ten are counted here, because those are the crop this site's calendar covers. The scalloped bush squashes at the top of the list are the ancestors of what is now sold as patty pan.
Pea
71 described in 1863Auvergne · Batt's Wonder · Beck's Prize-taker · Bedman's Imperial · Bellamy's Early Green Marrow · Bishop's Early Dwarf · Bishop's New Long-podded · Black-eyed Marrow · Blue Cimeter · Blue Imperial · Blue Prussian · Blue Spanish Dwarf · British Queen · Burbridge's Eclipse · Carter's Victoria · Charlton · Champion of Paris · Climax · Dantzic · Dickson's Favorite · Dillistone's Early · Dwarf Marrow · Early Dan O'Rourke · Early Frame · Early Hotspur · Early Warwick · Early Washington · Fairbeard's Champion of England · Fairbeard's Nonpareil · Fairbeard's Surprise · Flack's Imperial · General Wyndham · Hair's Dwarf Mammoth · Harrison's Glory · Harrison's Perfection · King of the Marrows · Knight's Dwarf Blue Marrow · Knight's Dwarf Green Marrow · Knight's Dwarf White Marrow · Knight's Tall Blue Marrow · Knight's Tall Green Marrow · Knight's Tall White Marrow · Matchless Marrow · Milford Marrow · Missouri Marrow · Ne Plus Ultra · Noble's Early Green Marrow · Prince Albert · Queen of the Dwarfs · Ringwood Marrow · Royal Dwarf or White Prussian · Sebastopol · Shillings Grotto · Spanish Dwarf · Tall White Marrow · Taylor's Early · Thurston's Reliance · Tom Thumb · Veitch's Perfection · Victoria Marrow · Warner's Early Emperor · Woodford's Marrow · Common Dwarf Sugar · Early Dwarf Dutch Sugar · Giant Eatable-podded · Large Crooked Sugar · Purple-podded or Australian · Red-flowered Sugar · Tamarind Sugar · White-podded Sugar · Yellow-podded Sugar
Seventy-one — the longest list in this census and more than lettuce, cabbage or broccoli. Sixty-two are shelling peas and nine are the eatable-podded sugar sorts we would now call snap or snow peas. Read the names and the reason is obvious: Batt, Beck, Bedman, Bellamy, Bishop, Burbridge, Carter, Dickson, Dillistone, Fairbeard, Flack, Hair, Harrison, Knight, Noble, Shilling, Taylor, Thurston, Veitch, Warner, Woodford. The pea was the Victorian breeder's obsession crop, and almost every one of those names is a person.
Bush bean
35 described in 1863Bagnolet · Black-eyed China · Blue Pod · Canada Yellow · Chilian · Crescent-eyed · Dun-colored · Dwarf Cranberry · Dwarf Horticultural · Dwarf Sabre · Dwarf Soissons · Early China · Early Rachel · Early Valentine · Golden Cranberry · Long Yellow Six-weeks · Mohawk · Newington Wonder · Pea-bean · Pottawottomie · Red Flageolet · Red-speckled · Refugee · Rice · Rob-Roy · Round Yellow Six-weeks · Solitaire · Swiss Crimson · Turtle-soup · Victoria · White's Early · White Flageolet · White Kidney · White Marrow · Yellow-eyed China
Thirty-five bush beans, and Burr lists a further fifteen pole or running sorts under the same chapter — fifty in all for the common garden bean. Lima, scarlet-runner, sieva and the asparagus-bean each get chapters of their own, so the family runs longer still. Several of these names survive: Dwarf Horticultural and Refugee are still sold.
Kale
19 described in 1863Burr heads it “Borecole, or Kale”Buda Kale, or Borecole · Cabbaging Kale, or Borecole · Cock's-comb Kale · Cow-cabbage · Daubenton's Creeping Borecole · Dwarf Green Curled Borecole · Field Cabbage · Flanders Kale · Green Marrow-stem Borecole · Lannilis Borecole · Neapolitan Borecole · Palm Kale · Purple Borecole · Red Marrow-stem Borecole · Tall Green Curled · Thousand-headed Borecole · Variegated Borecole · Variegated Cock's-comb Kale · Woburn Perennial Kale
Nineteen, and the word Burr leads with is borecole rather than kale — the older English name, from the Dutch for peasant's cabbage. Several here are frankly fodder: Cow-cabbage, Field Cabbage, Thousand-headed and the marrow-stem types were grown to feed livestock through winter, which is what kale was mostly for. Palm Kale is recognisably the cavolo nero sold now at a considerable markup.
Bulb onion
27 described in 1863Blood-red · Brown Portugal · Danvers · Deptford · Early Silver Nocera · Early Red Wethersfield · Early Silver-skin · Fusiform, or Cow-horn · Intermediate Red Wethersfield · James's Keeping · Large Red · Madeira · New Deep Blood-red · Pale Red · Paris Straw-colored · Pear-shaped · Potato Onion · Silver-skin · Strasburg · Top or Tree Onion · Tripoli · Two-bladed · White Globe · Yellow Globe · White Lisbon · White Portugal, or Spanish · Yellow Onion
Twenty-seven, and an unusually good survival rate — Danvers, Early Red Wethersfield, Yellow Globe, White Portugal and White Lisbon are all still sold under those names, which is rare in this census. Potato Onion and Top or Tree Onion are the perennial multiplier types that propagate by division and bulbils rather than seed, and are still passed hand to hand rather than bought.
Cucumber
10 described in 1863Early Cluster · Early Frame · Early Russian · London Long Green · Long Green Prickly · Long Green Turkey · Short Prickly · Underwood's Short Prickly · White Spanish · White-spined
Only ten, which makes cucumber one of the least diverse crops Burr describes — and the reason is in the names. Three are prickly types and one is White-spined: the spines and warts that modern breeding removed were simply what a cucumber looked like. White-spined is the ancestor of nearly every American slicing cucumber sold since.
Spinach
7 described in 1863Flanders Spinach · Large Prickly-seeded Spinach · Lettuce-leaved Spinach · Sorrel-leaved Spinach · Summer or Round-leaved Spinach · Winter or Common Prickly Spinach · Yellow Sorrel-leaved Spinach
The shortest list in the whole census — seven. The prickly-seeded sorts are named for the seed, not the leaf: true spinach seed used to come in a spiny husk, and the round-seeded types Burr calls Summer spinach are the ones that won. The split he records, prickly-seeded for winter standing and round-seeded for summer, is still roughly the division between overwintering and spring varieties.
Bunching onion
2 described in 1863Burr heads it “Welsh Onion”Common or Red Welsh Onion · White Welsh Onion
Two, against twenty-six kinds of bulb onion in the same book. Burr dismisses them as of little value except in cold latitudes and rarely found in the vegetable gardens of this country — when a nineteenth-century American wanted a green onion, they pulled a young bulb onion.
Potato
49 described in 1863Ash-leaved Early · Ash-leaved Kidney · Biscuit · Black Chenango · Buckeye · Calico · California Red · Carter · Churchill · Cristy · Cups · Danvers Seedling · Davis's Seedling · Dykeman · Early Blue · Early Cockney · Early Manly · Flour-ball · Fluke Kidney · Forty-fold · Garnet Chili · Gillyflower · Green-top · Hill's Early · Irish Cups · Jackson White · Jenny Lind · Lady's Finger · Lapstone Kidney · Long Red · Mexican · Nova-Scotia Blue · Old Kidney · Peach-blow · Pink-eyed · Poggy, or Porgee · Quarry · Rohan · Shaw's Early · State of Maine · St. Helena · Taylor's Forty-fold · Tolon · Vermont White · Veto, or Abington Blue · White Chenango · White Cups · White Mountain · Worcester Seedling
Forty-nine, the longest single-crop list in this census after the pea — and unlike the pea, a list written seventeen years after the blight reached Ireland. Garnet Chili is the one to notice: it is a parent of Early Rose, and through Early Rose of a great deal of what is still grown.
Radish
28 described in 1863Early Black · Early Long Purple · Early Purple Turnip-rooted · Early Scarlet Turnip-rooted · Early White Turnip-rooted · Gray Olive-shaped · Gray Turnip-rooted · Long Purple · Long Salmon · Long Scarlet · Olive-shaped Scarlet · Purple Turnip-rooted · Scarlet Turnip-rooted · Small, Early, Yellow Turnip-rooted · White, Crooked · White Turnip-rooted · Yellow Turnip-rooted · Long White · Long White Purple-top · New London Particular · Oblong Brown · Black Spanish · Large Purple Winter · Long Black Winter · Long-leaved White Chinese · Purple Chinese · Rose-colored Chinese · Winter White Spanish
Twenty-eight, split by Burr into spring-and-summer radishes and autumn-and-winter ones. That second group of eight — Black Spanish, the Chinese sorts, Long Black Winter — are the large storage radishes that quietly left American gardens and never left Asian ones.
Chard
5 described in 1863Burr heads it “Leaf-beet, or Swiss Chard”Green or Common Leaf-beet · Large-ribbed Curled · Large-ribbed Scarlet Brazilian · Large-ribbed Yellow Brazilian · Silver-leaf Beet
Only five — but two of them are the coloured-stem chards now sold as a novelty rainbow mixture. Scarlet and Yellow Brazilian were on the market in 1863, which is worth knowing before paying a premium for them as an innovation.
What “heirloom” means, and what it does not
The word has no legal definition and no agreed cut-off date. What it reliably means in practice is open-pollinated — the variety comes true from saved seed — and that is the property that matters for this page. A hybrid, usually labelled F1, will not: its seed produces a scattered mix of its parents, which is not a defect but is a reason to buy that seed again each year rather than save it.
Open-pollinated does not mean old, and old does not mean better. Plenty of open-pollinated varieties were bred recently, and plenty of hybrids genuinely outperform the heirloom equivalent — Solomon, who is as sympathetic to old varieties as anyone, still tells irrigating gardeners to prefer hybrid broccoli and dry gardeners to prefer the crude open-pollinated sorts, because they want different things from the plant.
The honest case for heirlooms is narrower and stronger than the usual one. They can be saved, so they are yours. They were selected in gardens rather than for shipping. And where a variety suits an unusual local condition — a wet spring, a rainless August, a short season — the thing that suits it is often something nobody is breeding for any more.
Crop by crop
Each guide carries its own seed-saving section with the method rather than the theory — including, where an old book describes it better than we could, the method as it was written down in 1863.
More from the seed shelf
We're working through the public-domain growing literature and counting what it recorded. Occasional notes from Eugene, Oregon — an art business with agricultural roots, working its way toward farming.
We'll email you to confirm before sending anything. After that, occasional seasonal notes from Sun & Rain Works — we won't share your address, and every email has an unsubscribe link.
Seed-saving figures are current practice at home scale, written in our own words; 17crops covered, matching the sowing calendar. Variety counts are our own, made by listing every heading in the relevant chapter of Fearing Burr's Field and Garden Vegetables of America (1863), public domain by age and free to read in full at Project Gutenberg.