I am thinking of planting some veggies this year....

[LaydeeBug]

maybe some tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, who knows.

My question is can I just save the seeds from some organic peppers I buy? What do I have to do to them? I live in the DC area, and have had only horrible, costly experiences with gardens. Please help.

[elleng]

1. Check with Gardening group too, Laydee.

[LaydeeBug]

2. oh dear, I should have thought of that nt

[pengillian101]

3. I am no expert by any means, but just dry and use last year's seeds.

Years and years ago I was an avid gardener. I dried seeds from one harvest and planted the next year. It worked great. After the seeds dried out naturally, I stored in a plain old paper envelope in the bottom bin of the fridge. I guess that's where heirloom seeds come from - dried seeds used year after year, over and over for the next season, for decades.

Your local County Extension Office can be very helpful for your area.

[Arkansas Granny]

4. Saving seeds can be tricky. If you use seeds from hybrid plants, you

could wind up with something much different than the fruit or veggie you saved the seed from. This site seems to have some pretty good info for saving seeds.

http://www.virtualseeds.com/seedsaving.html

I have found a seed company that sells small packets of seed for the home gardener, usually for much less that most suppliers. The also have some interesting seed mixes to play with. You can shop online or request a catalog here:

https://www.superseeds.com/default.php

[trud]

5. farmers markets

Where I live the farmers markets tend to sell vegetable seedings in the spring. More costly that seed starting, but more reliable.

What's happened that gardening has been costly for you?

[beac]

6. I'm definitely still a newbie gardener and, as such, I can tell you that I've

found growing veggies from seeds MUCH harder that growing flowers from seeds. In order to have seedlings big and healthy enough to transplant outdoors once the frost season has passed, you need to start them indoors now with a good light source, heat, right amount of moisture, etc. (that in itself can get expensive (warming tray, grow lamp, etc.) or you need a warm greenhouse. I tried to do it w/out all those things, and my seedlings never got big enough to handle transplanting in time to actually produce any veggies. Peas are the only exception to my from-seed disasters and I've had good luck putting them out in very early Spring (mid-march.) I'm experimenting with a batch this year that went into a container last week.

I wouldn't try using your organic pepper seeds for the reasons mentioned above.

Lettuces and herbs, on the other hand, are easy to grow from seed. You can plant lettuces now, provided you can cover them up on really cold nights. Swiss Chard is another cold-tolerant choice and the "Rainbow" variety is pretty as well as tasty and good for you.

Being in the DC area, you probably have a lot of garden centers around, but if you are interested in organically grown transplants, I can recommend The Tasteful Garden http://www.tastefulgarden.com/ . I got great tomatoes and peppers from them last year. They will ship them to you at the right time for transplanting in your zone and with instructions on how to harden them off before planting outside.

I really liked getting plants that were healthy and organic and past the fragile, tender seedling stage.

Well, this is rather a long non-cooking post in the C&B forum, so come hang out w/us in the Gardening forum this year. There are lots of experienced smarties there and my garden really benefited from their combined wisdom last year. :hi:

[trud]

7. when I used to grow seedlings myself

I just used a regular fluorescent shop type light, no warming mat, cut up milk cartons and the like for containers (holes in the bottom for drainage.)

[trud]

8. www.naturalgardening.com

I've bought from them the last 2-3 years, seem to be half the price of tastefulgarden.

[beac]

9. Thanks for the tip!

Going to check them out now. :hi: