Seed saving test

I tested a few of the zinnia seeds I saved to see if they were any good. You basically place them between two wet paper towels and put them somewhere warm-ish and wait to see if any sprout. I used Montana’s mobile greenhouse she has in the garage, a pretty cool little device. It took awhile, but it looks like they sprouted!

The round container holds marigold seeds from 2024. I used many of these this year, but I’m not sure I will use them next year. In the main container are my saved seeds from this year’s zinnias. I don’t really want to use these seeds per se, but I have some nice pastel colored zinnia seeds next year that I DO want to save. So this year was a practice run. I did not actually finish cleaning the seeds (blowing away the non-seed parts), so this is not all seeds.

Ziploc bag with a few of the zinnia bits.

This is Montana’s indoor greenhouse. Heavy duty canvas over a metal frame, with small and large zip access from the front.

It also has a little “peek-a-boo” window flap for if you need to control the light inside the unit.

Here are some of the things that Montana moves into here from her garden for the winter.

It worked! At least some of them did. The heart-shaped dark bits are seeds, and so it looks like maybe half of them germinated. Not too bad for a first test!