i would like to know how to preserve pumpkin seeds and sweet corn seeds in order to avoid rotting.
i prefer no chemicals if possible

Pumpkin is tricky - you have to scoop out the "guts" and separate, then wash the seeds. I thought you had to "ferment" the seeds to get the guck off but SSE doesn't say that.

http://www.seedsavers.org/site... (specific instructions for different crops.)
Melons (I guess including pumpkin) : To avoid cross-pollination, isolate ¼ mile from watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, honeydew, snake melon, and Armenian cucumbers). Save seeds from early ripening melons. Wash seeds from ripe melons in a strainer and dry. Seeds are ready to store when they break instead of bend.


Here are some links to how-to-save various kinds of seeds :

http://theseedsite.co.uk/harve...
http://www.seedsavers.org/Educ...
http://www.seedsavers.org/Educ... (brief overview)

http://blog.seedsavers.org/ass... (mature seeds crunch when you chew them)

Great PDF with lots of information:
http://seedalliance.org/index....

RickCorey said:Pumpkin is tricky - you have to scoop out the "guts" and separate, then wash the seeds. I thought you had to "ferment" the seeds to get the guck off but SSE doesn't say that.

http://www.seedsavers.org/site... (specific instructions for different crops.)
Melons (I guess including pumpkin) : To avoid cross-pollination, isolate ¼ mile from watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, honeydew, snake melon, and Armenian cucumbers). Save seeds from early ripening melons. Wash seeds from ripe melons in a strainer and dry. Seeds are ready to store when they break instead of bend.


Here are some links to how-to-save various kinds of seeds :

http://theseedsite.co.uk/harve...
http://www.seedsavers.org/Educ...
http://www.seedsavers.org/Educ... (brief overview)

http://blog.seedsavers.org/ass... (mature seeds crunch when you chew them)

Great PDF with lots of information:
http://seedalliance.org/index....

thanks alot as i go along the question keep accumilating.....
is there a limit to asking?

davidsevit said: ... is there a limit to asking?

I don't think so.

But when a general answer needs to be several pages long, sometimes is easier to link to an article that some writer took days to polish, than it is to try to re-create a long and detailed (and accurate!) answer from scratch. Plus, if two different authors answer the same question, you can see which things are only opinions, and which are widely-agreed-upon.

So please excuse my giving some links to general seed-saving advice instead of typing up several pages of text that would be less-well-written and more prone to ignorant mistakes.

I would be wonderful, and would benefit all of us, if you took note of things in links like those, that don't seem to make sense, or are unclear or impractical or just not relevant to your situation, and mentioned them on one of these "Question" threads.

If it sounded fishy or unclear to you, it probably IS fishy or unclear, and a specific question about some detail is likely to draw comments from people who agree or disagree with that specific issue.

For example, if XYZ seems like a lot of work and might not be necessary in every situation, there are bound to be some people here who never bother with XYZ and have alternative ways of doing something. And some people who spend hours fussing with XYZ and think they get some benefit from that fussiness.

RickCorey said:

I don't think so.

But when a general answer needs to be several pages long, sometimes is easier to link to an article that some writer took days to polish, than it is to try to re-create a long and detailed (and accurate!) answer from scratch. Plus, if two different authors answer the same question, you can see which things are only opinions, and which are widely-agreed-upon.

So please excuse my giving some links to general seed-saving advice instead of typing up several pages of text that would be less-well-written and more prone to ignorant mistakes.

I would be wonderful, and would benefit all of us, if you took note of things in links like those, that don't seem to make sense, or are unclear or impractical or just not relevant to your situation, and mentioned them on one of these "Question" threads.

If it sounded fishy or unclear to you, it probably IS fishy or unclear, and a specific question about some detail is likely to draw comments from people who agree or disagree with that specific issue.

For example, if XYZ seems like a lot of work and might not be necessary in every situation, there are bound to be some people here who never bother with XYZ and have alternative ways of doing something. And some people who spend hours fussing with XYZ and think they get some benefit from that fussiness.

wow thank you
wait for my next set of questions