Cucumbers are preferable for many, you can use them either for eating or pickling, there is no wonder a lot of people enjoy growing it in their yard or space garden. Even so, buying store-bought cucumber seeds may seem a side wasted money pocket for a handful of gardeners. You think, why am I doing this!!! But worry no more, because you save cucumber seeds for planting now, or even store them to plant next year.

Moreover, saving cucumber seeds for planting should be fun, it will not take too much time as you may think. Once you know how to handle the seeds and grasp the tricks you need to do, you will be repeating the process every season. You can even teach your children to do so. Without any delay, let’s get into the details on all the information you need along this enjoyable road.

Table of Contents

1 Why should you save cucumber seeds for planting?

a wise man once said, “you can always buy as much as you can, but nothing compare saving”. If you ask me, there are many benefits you can get from saving cucumber seeds for planting later or next year. To mention few of them I will say:

Store-bought seeds come with a few seeds in it, when saving cucumber seeds for planting by your hands and fruits, you will get enough stock to store and give away to friends and neighbors.
You will save some bucks along the way every time you start to save cucumber seeds for planting.
You will enjoy performing the saving process.
You can include the children in the learning process.
You can store cucumber seeds for planting for many years to come.
It does not take too much time.

As you can see, there are only beneficial things you will gain when you decide to save cucumber seeds for planting, it is only up to you when you want to execute them…

2 Is it easy to save cucumber seeds for planting.

Cucumber is known as an easy grown plant. When it comes to collecting seeds and saving them for the planting next year or after, there is no concern you need to take, as it is an easy process to do, and I will personally guide you through every step from it.

Meanwhile, what you should be doing is thinking about how to save multiple varieties of cucumber seeds for planting and not just one. This will save both time and energy and will make the process even enjoyable as you are acting like professionals.

Another key point to take is, choosing the right varieties is critical in such situations. In fact, it is more important than saving cucumber seeds for planting itself. So let’s talk about that for a bit…

3 What variety is more suitable to save cucumber seeds from for planting?

First thing to remember and know, the world has changed a lot since the old days when you collected seeds and threw them in the ground and let them grow. In our present time there are a lot of varieties of cucumbers, even plenty to remember.

In general, I can name a few types from cucumbers, which are: hybrid variety, non-organic varieties, and Heirloom varieties. Each of them has specific characteristics which either help or make it hard to re-produce cucumbers when planting and growing.

Hybrid variety is known from its name. It is grown from two or multiple cucumber varieties for the special shape and taste. When you think about saving cucumber seeds for planting, it is more likely to have a different type from the chosen cucumber, because the parent plant is not a single or same plant type.

Another negative point to take is, the seeds of hybrid cucumbers may be treated chemically or even sterile, this is why you should avoid this type as you will get dizzy when performing multiple actions to grow it.

Second, non-organic cucumber varieties are treated chemically to prevent them from sprouting. This is an economic action that allows for a long period of storage, and to prevent the cucumber fruits from spoiling and fading away, besides the seeds of non-organic cucumber variety will be non-doable neither for planting nor saving.

Finally, Heirloom varieties. This is the most suitable variety to save cucumber seeds for planting.

The reason behind that is that this type of variety is old and preserves their characteristics through planting and growing, and it is the same type that our mankind have used in the past. To name a few of them: Armenian cukes, serpent gourds, West Indian gherkins and the list continue….

After all, choosing an organic variety to save cucumber seeds from is important, that’s what worked for me and that’s what you should be doing, otherwise, your effort will be like a feather in the wind. Everyone must avoid such situations.

4 When and how to collect cucumber seeds for planting.

One thing you should be aware of is that there are two types of cucumbers which you can extract the seeds from, the ordinary ripened cucumber fruits and the fruits that ripen beyond their time which are called mature fruits.

Ordinary ripe cucumber fruits are the ones that are ready for eating and pickling, this one contains immature seeds inside of them and they are not doable for saving. This kind is only suitable for consumable purposes.

Meanwhile, mature cucumber fruits have passed the ripening time. This kind of fruit contains mature seeds that are suitable for saving and planting, and often you will find it bitter and inedible for many.

To differentiate the mature cucumbers, you will notice that the color of the fruit starts to turn from yellow to orange yellow, you will notice some bumps in it as it is a natural thing and does not mean that the fruit is rotten.

This mature cucumber fruit is often ready to harvest after two weeks from the ordinary harvesting time, and that’s your sign to collect them. This will give you mature cucumber seeds for saving and planting.

5 Multiple ways to extract and save cucumber seeds for planting.

Once you have mature cucumber fruits in hand, it’s time to extract seeds from it. I can declare that there are a couple ways to do so and you are free to choose any of them because both ways are good.

First of all, you should choose the cucumber fruit that appears to be bigger and healthier than its companions. By doing so, you are choosing the best fruit which is more likely to have good genetics inside it.

Now to the fun part:

First one:

Slice the cucumber fruit longitudinally using a knife forming two pieces of it.
Using a spoon or by your bare fingers and start to take out the mix of pulp and seeds and put them in a strainer.
Under water start to rinse and wash the mix to separate seeds from pulps, the task is done when you have only seeds in the strainer.
Put the cucumber seeds in a piece of paper and let it dry for a week or so.
Once you have dried cucumber seeds now it’s time for saving, you have many choices as long as you put them in a dry and dark place away from humid and heat.

Second one:

Slice and extract the seeds same as the first method, but this time put them in a jar and add water until the mix is dumped.
Put the jar in a dark place with room temperature for a week. This is called the fermentation process, which will exclude and kill all the viruses and diseases that may be holding seeds in it.
After time is up, you will find that some seeds are floating, those ones are not mature and not suitable for saving. Add water until you get rid of them and preserve the sink seeds only.
Dry the seeds for a week and then save them with your chosen way.

6 How long you can save cucumber seeds for planting.

From many gardeners’ experiences, saving cucumber seeds for planting may take several years to come. You can even store for 5 years while keeping its durability for planting. As long as you keep your seeds from humidity and heat.

Putting your stored cucumber seeds in a dark place is also a good choice. There are many people who make saving cucumber seeds for planting even more enjoyable, by putting the seeds in small and beautiful envelopes with notes in back marking the date and type of variety, you should try it.

Conclusion.

To summarize, saving cucumber seeds for planting is possible and easy to do, as you will benefit from plenty of seeds to use and save money while doing so, and also children can be included in this method.

Moreover, you should choose an organic cucumber variety or Heirloom varieties. Because those types are the fruits you can collect seeds for planting from them. Doable and successful seeds you need and that’s what you will get.

must be remembered, harvest cucumber fruits when they pass the ordinary ripening time by two weeks, you will notice yellow to orange yellow fruits, that’s what you need because those mature cucumber fruits contain mature seeds that are compatible for saving and planting.

Furthermore, if you wish to know more about cucumbers, feel free to read what we have written about the topic, as long as you promise to throw any issue you have faced down below, happy gardening.