Taking from "Seed to Seed" (a must-have if you want to save seeds!), she says they must be past the edible stage, large, and beginning to ripen. They'll turn color --some white, some yellow/orange.

Diane

And they'll be really ugly by that point too!

Some make the mistake of picking cukes, for seed, when they are simply yellow or light orange. The seed in these fruit is generally underdeveloped. It's best to wait until the fruit turns a deep burnished orange and is getting soft, as in ready to rot. That's when they're ready to pick. I cut these over ripe cukes in chunks and use my fingers to push out the pulp containing seed. I put this pulp in a jar and let it ferment a couple days, til the mixture has white mold on top. Then I scoop off the mold and run the rest of the mix through a collander and wash it under running water. Pick out the chucks of cucumber and dry it on paper.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Interesting that you set the pulp aside and let it ferment before taking the seeds out of it. I'd never heard of that. Thanks for the tip, George.

What about peppers? We got a bunch of mis-marked ones this year and I have no idea what they might be. Tried to ID them on a couple of pepper sites and came up empty. Whatever they are, I'd like to save some of the seed and see if we can reproduce them next year. Hot little beggars, yellow and finally turning red-orange, less than an inch long and smooth-skinned. Is there a magic trick for saving the seeds, or just let a couple of them mature completely and then save it?

Pat

Thanks for the info, this will be my first year at seed saving.

Pat,

Peppers are easier than cukes because fermentation is not required. You can just leave the pepper on the plant until it is old and wrinkled and dehydrated and then can pick it, cut it open and harvest the seeds. Be sure they're completely dry before you package them and put them up for next year.

However, if you don't know what you have in terms of it being a hybrid or an open-pollinated version, the seed you save may or may not reproduce true to form next year. Also, if you didn't bag blossoms or grow the plant in time or distance isolation from every other pepper variety, there's always a chance of insect-caused cross-pollination, even though peppers are self-fruitful.

As Diane said, anyone who's serious about saving seeds needs Suzanne Ashworth's book "Seed to Seed", which is the bible for seed savers.

Dawn

Dawn, I really have no idea what these peppers are. We bought what were tagged as Anaheim, Sweet Banana, and Bell. What we got were the banana peppers, no bell at all, only one anaheim, a jalapeno, and four unidentified hot little yellow ones. In fact, one plant is half jalapeno and half little yellow ones that are a different size, shape, and color from the others. It's pretty bizarre.
They were growing in the row with the other peppers, so I don't have a clue what might happen with the seed. Good to know that I need to let them really shrivel up and dry as much as possible on the plant so that they fully ripen.
I've saved beans and tomato seeds, and acorn squash, but not peppers. Thanks.

Pat