Producing your own broccoli seeds for the next season is an easy task. We will explain the whole process from plant selection, harvesting and saving seeds.

One of the best ways to harvest and save broccoli seeds is letting the plant bolt and produce its seed pods. Once the pods are dry, you can cut the flower stalks and dry them indoors for 2 weeks. Remove and crush the pods to free the seeds, separate them from the chaff, and store them.

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Making your own broccoli seeds is a rewarding process. You will learn why you need more than one plant to produce seeds, how to produce the highest amount of seeds (to also make your own sprouts), the right way to dry and harvest seeds, and how to store them to last for years.

Select The Best Plants To Save The Seeds

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica) is part of the cabbage family (Brassicaceae). It produces those delicious edible flower heads that we all know, yet what is less known is that its leaves and flowers are also edible and just as tasty.

There are no seeds in the broccoli heads or florets that we usually consume, because they were harvested before the flowers opened and so the ovules are not fertilized.

Broccoli seeds on the other hand come from mature plants that have bolted. This means that the broccoli head starts opening up from their dense shape and expands into various flower bearing stalks.

Once the plants have produced their flowers, they then need to be pollinated in order to form seed pods. Those pods then need to ripen in order to mature the seeds they contain. Once the seeds are mature they can last for up to five years and germinate upon encountering favorable conditions.

A broccoli seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering. The ovules inside the flower get fertilized, and after they ripen they are capable of germinating and producing a new plant.

You can produce two harvests each year, meaning that certain varieties will be best suited for spring and summer growth, and others will produce better in autumn with colder weather.

When choosing the right plant to harvest seeds from, you should observe various traits besides yield, such as resistance to pests, vigorous growth, tolerance to heat or cold weather, and flavor.

Heirloom varieties have a broader set of genes, and can adapt to different soils and changing weather conditions. This type of varieties are more resilient and can range from remarkably heat tolerant plants for summer crops or others that can overwinter and come up in early spring.

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Cut The Main Head And Select The Seed Plants

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You can save broccoli seeds for the next season by selecting 4-6 of the best performing and most resistant plants. After harvesting the main head you can define which plants to keep for seed, let them bolt freely and produce the seed pods to make your own broccoli seeds.

After cutting the main flower head the plants will start producing new smaller heads from the side shoots, these new shoots and leaves are also edible. You can continue harvesting the side shoots from the plants for weeks or months as Broccoli is a biennial plant usually grown as an annual crop.

If you want to learn how to harvest your broccoli plant multiple times you might be interested in reading this article.

The plants will remain in a vegetative state as long as you keep cutting the flower heads and don’t let them form the seed pods. When the plant starts producing the flowers it enters a reproductive stage, and it will use all its energy to produce the seeds, after which it will dry out.

If left to bolt freely, a broccoli plant will produce from 4,000 to 9,000 seeds. Therefore, you could cut most of the side shoots for food, leaving 1-3 side shoots to produce seeds. If you want a bigger amount of seeds for broccoli sprouts, simply let your plants bolt after cutting the main head.

To pollinate broccoli you need more than one plant, since plants will only produce a small amount of seeds when self-pollinated. This “self-incompatibility” trait promotes the production of new hybrids with more vigor. We therefore recommend selecting 4-6 of your best plants.

Broccoli plants produce small round seeds that range from 1-3 mm in diameter. They come in a variety of colors like black, gray, brown or tan. Broccoli seeds are located inside the seed pod or silique, and there are between 8 to 10+ seeds inside each pod. The seeds will spill out of the pods by themselves once the pods are totally dry and burst open.

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Wait For The Seed Pods To Dry Before Harvesting.

As a general rule, broccoli seeds will be ready to harvest when the seed pods have dried on the plant. There will still be some humidity inside the pods and seeds; It is therefore recommended to plan in a second indoors drying period of about 2 weeks to ensure that the seeds are totally dry.

To avoid the seeds from being spoiled, it is better to finish the drying phase indoors. The pods collect humidity by night and in case of a rain event they could soak up the moisture, causing the seeds to start germinating inside the pod. If the weather is really humid and the seed pods are not totally dry, you can cut them when they are already yellow and the seeds have a darker color (instead of being still green), as this means that they are already mature and viable.

To collect broccoli seeds use scissors to cut the flower stalks from the plant. Be extra careful when handling them because the dried pods will pop open easily and spill the seeds. The best way to handle the flower stems is putting them inside paper bags right after clipping them off.

These paper bags can be kept indoors and dried for a longer period, you can wait until the seed pods open naturally and free the seeds. Crush the flower stems inside the paper bag to release the first softer pods before taking them out to avoid any loss.

One of the best ways to extract broccoli seeds is crushing the seed pods inside a big container. Split the pods from the stalk and crush them with your hands, if they are dry enough they will split open and free the seeds easily. Separate the chaff from the seeds using a sieve.

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After using the sieve you can put the seeds inside a bowl to finish the cleaning process. Shake them gently and carefully blow air into the seeds to remove dust and any other impurities.

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Seeds Must Be Totally Dry To Be Stored Properly

Broccoli seeds are live embryos in latency and they will eventually die after a certain period of time. The seeds will go bad or expire before time if they were not properly dried or stored. Normally, broccoli seeds will still be viable after 3-5 years if stored in the right conditions.

Humid weather conditions make it difficult to dry seeds and keep them from molding. Use a desiccant like silica gel beads to speed up the process. For best results, place the seeds into a paper bag and into an airtight jar with enough silica beads to cover 1” (2.5 cm) for 4-6 weeks.

The beads might change color (this means they absorbed the humidity) before that time, so you can take them out, dry them in the oven (or in the sun if there is any) and put them back into the jar. After 4-6 weeks the seeds will be totally dry, and this will ensure the longest possible viable lifetime in storage.

The best way to store broccoli seeds is in a dry and dark place with cool temperature. To save your broccoli seeds for next season store them in individual paper packets, label them with the date of when you collected the seeds, and store them inside an airtight container.

Properly stored seeds will remain viable for several years. You can add some extra silica beads (6-8 tbsp) inside each jar to monitor if they are totally airtight, if the silica changes color after a couple months it is better to change the jar for others with a better sealing method.

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Conclusions

If you follow these simple steps you can now produce your own broccoli seeds. You will have enough seeds to grow well adapted and resistant plants in the years to come, and will also be able to make homemade organic broccoli sprouts.

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Related Questions

• Will broccoli reseed itself?

If broccoli plants are allowed to bloom and set seeds, they will be able reseed themselves. The plants will produce a high amount of viable seeds the first season, in the next season the seeds will find the right conditions to start germinating, and growing new plants naturally.

• Are broccoli sprout seeds the same as broccoli seeds?

Broccoli sprout seeds are the same as regular broccoli seeds. The main differences when store-bought are that broccoli sprout seeds don’t necessarily come from one specific “pure” variety, and have not been treated with fungicides or other chemicals like conventional broccoli seeds.

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