If you have ever experienced the joy of eating a salad made with your own home grown lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and capsicum, you'd never buy these vegetables from the shops again! The difference in taste is such that you'll be rushing to the gardening centre to get more seeds so you can do it all again next year.
But you don't have to...
Tomato, lettuce, rocket, cucumber and capsicum are amongst the easiest vegetables to propagate from seed.
By following these directions, you can save seeds from this year's crop ready to plant for next year.
And if you didn't have a this year's crop, you can always save seed from a particularly tasty tomato, cucumber or capsicum that you bought at the shop.
Tomatoes To propagate tomatoes from seed, simply scoop out the seeds into a glass jar.
Don't worry if a bit of pulp comes along with it.
Screw on the lid and place on a sunny window sill for a few days until a fungus forms on top.
This fungus will eat through the gelatinous coating on the seeds.
Once you can see the fungus working (around 3 days) transfer the contents of your jar to another glass jar and fill to about a third full with warm water.
Anything that floats on top is waste - scoop this out.
You should now have healthy tomato seeds on the bottom of your jar.
Add some more water and swish around to help clean the seeds, then strain through a sieve to collect the seeds.
Place on some paper towel to dry out completely (say 2 or 3 days) and then store in an airtight container until you are ready to plant the seeds.
Lettuce Lettuce is prone to bolt to seed during warmer months, so again is a simple vegetable to propagate.
To propagate, simply let one or more of your lettuces flower.
You'll know they are going to flower as the centre of the lettuce will become very long and the outer leaves will die off.
After flowering, you will notice small brown circular pods on the flower spike, about half the size of a pea.
The seeds are inside these pods.
Simply remove them, open and remove the small white slivers inside - these are your lettuce seeds.
As for all seeds, allow to dry completely on paper towel for a few days before storing in an airtight container.
Rocket Rocket is treated similarly to lettuce, only this time the seed pods are long and narrow - almost like a miniature dry crinkly bean! Let your rocket flower, then when the seed pods turn dry and brown simply pull them off and harvest your seed.
Cucumber Propagating cucumber is similar to tomato, however with cucumber you want to start with plump large seeds, so let your cucumber stay on the vine longer than usual - let it start to go yellow and the foliage to die off.
Now scoop out the seeds into a glass jar and half fill with water.
Place the jar in a cool dry place (out of direct sunlight) for a week.
After a week scoop out anything still floating on top - all of your seeds will have sunk to the bottom.
Don't worry if some don't sink - these seeds won't grow anyway.
Now put some clean water into the jar and swish around to clean your seeds.
Strain through a sieve and then place on paper towel to allow them to dry thoroughly.
As these are larger seeds, they may take a few weeks to dry out completely, so test before storing them to ensure they are dry by snapping one in half.
Capsicum Capsicums are the easiest of all.
When cutting your capsicum, simply scrape the seeds onto some paper towel, allow to dry for 24 hours and then store in an airtight container.
No treatment required! When planting your seeds the following spring, don't be disheartened if not every seed takes - not every seed in a store bought packet takes either.
Just enjoy your free salad!