How Seeds Form

Before you start saving seed from your herb garden, it’s a good idea to make sure you understand the basics of plant reproduction. Plants grow from seed. A seed that has just sprouted will have two leaves. Leaves will sprout new leaves and keep doing so until a plant is formed. In order to nourish the leaves above the ground, the seed also sprouts downward into the soil.

The plant’s strongest desire is to reproduce just like everything else in nature. Plants reproduce from seed; a plant’s mission in life is to produce seed to guarantee the survival of its species. Plants are able to produce seeds by growing flowers, these are then pollinated by the wind or bees. As the flower petals shrivel and dry up, the seed matures, and the wind shakes the seed off the plant and onto the ground where it germinates and sprouts two new leaves, and the process repeats itself.

How to Collect Herb Garden Seed

Presumably, you will be harvesting your herb garden plants throughout the growing season and using their leaves and flowers for medicinal or culinary purposes. Halfway through the season, choose a few healthy sturdy stems from where you will collect your herb garden seed. Tie a colored ribbon around the branches to mark them, and stop harvesting leaves from those stems.

Cut the stems at the base once the flowers are almost fully ripened. Have several stems tied together with a rubber band and hang it upside down from a clothesline in a warm, dry room. Place the hanging end of the bundle inside a paper lunch sack, and secure the bag around the bundle with string or a twist tie. After a few days, shake the stems, and fully ripe seeds will drop into the bag.

How to Save Herb Garden Seed

Once you have collected seeds for an herb garden, the seeds will remain viable for several years if they are stored in paper envelopes in a cool, dry place. Be sure to write the name of the herb on the outside of the envelope so you’ll know what you are planting next spring.

There are two different techniques of using a portable greenhouse. One is known as the cold greenhouse technique and that’s when only the sun during the day gives the greenhouse its heat. The temperature at nighttime typically goes down to about 45 degrees at the coldest and heat does kick on when it gets very cold outside. No growing takes place in this kind of greenhouse, however you can maintain many plants that will come back in the summertime such as rosemary.

Greenhouse vegetables need to have warmth and the second method, the warm greenhouse system, should be used in this case. This technique will require more financial outlay since the temperature cannot fall below 55 degrees F. A heating system must be installed into your garden greenhouse. You can use a propane, electric or gas heater.

Most vegetables can be cultivated in a greenhouse. There are several types of each vegetable that are available in plants developed specifically for greenhouse growing. Look in seed catalogs to find those varieties. You want to look for kinds that will thrive in cooler temperatures than normal. You also want to find varieties that are more compact because room is at a minimum in a greenhouse.

Among the things you need to offer your greenhouse vegetables other than heat is pollination. You will not find any bees or other insects in your greenhouse that you would in the outdoors. A great example is cultivating tomatoes. Tie tomatoes to bamboo stakes and once the flowers appear tap the stakes once in the morning and once at nighttime. Do this when you see that the flower petals are curving backwards. You must watch daily because you just have a three day window of time that the flower petals will do this.

You’ll need to supplement sunlight throughout the winter too so plan on supplying grow lights in a winter greenhouse. Plants generally need 8 hours of sunlight per day. You’ll also have to supply water and fertilizer regularly.

Greenhouse vegetables during the wintertime can be hard to work with, more so than in the summer, but it can be very rewarding. Tomatoes can be picked out of the greenhouse in the dead of wintertime. You will be able to enjoy fresh veggies any time of year.