Drying saved seeds

[bigpinks]

Is wax paper the most stick free surface to dry seeds?

[Labradors2]

I've no idea about waxed paper. I use a regular ceramic or glass plate to dry my seeds and they don't stick horribly.

Linda

[ContainerTed]

I use those limp paper plates that are not coated. They help dry the seeds by absorbing the moisture. But they don't really cause sticking to the paper plates. You can write the name on the plate and they are reusable. I have a seed dryer that I made from scrap parts and it will dry a full plate of seeds (1500 plus) in about three days. The main thing about these plates is that they help the drying by sucking up some of the moisture. At about day four, they rarely show any sticking to the plates.

[GrowingCoastal]

I use the paper plates as recomended here. Mine are small size plates because I don't grow a lot of tomatoes. Once they are dry enough, after a few days I stack the plates until I am ready to package them.

[oakley]

Thin paper plates are a standard method. I use the disk type coffee filter basket. I like the fluted sides. They absorb that last bit of moisture and stick a tiny bit so no cross seed flying. Six or 8 varieties on a sheet pan up high in the kitchen for a couple weeks.

[rxkeith]

i use the paper plate method myself.
write on the plate the variety of seed, and date you started drying them.
some sticking usually occurs, but is easily solved by lightly scraping with my finger nails
inward toward the palm of my hand, so seeds don't go shooting off the plate.
the plates stack, and like ted says are reusable. just cross off the previous name of seed.
i then forget about the seeds until it gets cold enough to get a fire going in the wood stove, and the humidity in the house is lower. then, i package them up.



keith

[friedgreen51]

I have used wax paper for years. It works well for me and is not expensive.
You can write the name of the variety on the wax paper with a Sharpie.

[FarmerShawn]

It's cheap paper plates for me, for all of the previously stated reasons. I save lots of varieties, so I stack the seed-laden plates in greenhouse trays, separated with wooden skewers for air flow. Then, a spatula from the kitchen drawer quickly frees them up, when I get around to packing them up.

Wax paper is an interesting idea (as is writing on it with a Sharpie), for a less sticky situation. My only worry is that it wouldn't wick the moisture away from the seeds as well as some kind of paper might, or something that water can pass through. But, if it works and you get good results, so much the better.

I've had seeds mold on a ceramic plate before; so, I started using brown paper bags after that (but they can stick to those), and they dried more nicely for me there. A fan would probably solve the problem with mold on a ceramic plate, however.

Eventually, I started using empty herbal tea bags (preferably not the true cotton kind, as they stick to that well, but probably the kind that is made out of some kind of plastic mesh that mimics the cotton). Even if they stick, at least they're already in a bag, and after I cut it open, I can stuff that bag into a plastic bead bag, if I don't want to bother transferring them from the one-use herbal tea bag to a plastic bead bag. I lay the seeds, each already in a herbal tea bag, on a brown paper bag to dry. Even though the seeds are bunched together in the bag, they still dry nicely, although they can stick to each other. I keep a fan going to help them dry better and faster (that's especially important for large seeds that take longer to dry, such as squash).

But yeah, if you don't get mold, it sounds like the wax paper idea is fast and easy, and probably worth it. I don't know anything that would stick less off-hand. I imagine a fan would be enough to prevent mold in this situation for those who do get it. But, it would probably still dry faster on another substance.

[friedgreen51]

No problem with mold, but I do dry them inside in the air conditioning.

[Labradors2]

It seems that I am the only one who likes to use small regular plates to dry my seeds. I hate to waste paper plates or coffee filters.

I should add that I strain and rinse my seeds through a tea strainer with a fine mesh weave and before dumping out the seeds, I rest the strainer on a dish cloth to mop up a lot of the remaining moisture from the rinse cycle. I then separate the seeds with a knife.

Since I have used a piece of masking take to write the variety name on the little wine glass that I use to ferment the seeds, I simply take that off the glass and stick it onto the plate. The only downside is that the plates are not stackable, but that's what my sunroom window sills are for .

I've never had a problem with mold.

Linda

[wildcat62]

I use the coffee filters.

[Worth1]

I dry my seeds on an old Ming dynasty china plate I have laying around.

[Labradors2]

Ha ha Worth. Don't you dare drop that!

Linda

[slugworth]

don't forget to label