Saving Cucamelon Seed - Air Drying
How to Save Cucamelon Seed - The Air Drying Method
Saving your own Cucamelon seed is an easy thing to do and will save you the cost of buying expensive seed the following year. There are a couple of methods that you can try. In this article we will go through how to air dry Cucamelon seed which you can then sow next spring. (If you want your seeds to last longer, fermented Cucamelon seed tends to be viable for about 5 years - check out our article on fermenting Cucamelon seeds here).
Step 1
Choose a number of ripe Cucamelons that you want to save your seed from. They should be about 2.5 cm 91 inch) long.
Step 2
Cut the Cucamelons in half to expose the seeds.
Step 3
Squeeze the seeds out of the Cucamelon halves onto paper towels. Alternatively place them onto coffee filter paper as the seeds are less likely to stick to this. There are up to 50 seeds in each Cucamelon so you won't need very many to get lots of seeds.
Spread the seeds out and allow them to dry fully. Once fully dried they can be stored to sow next spring.
Step 4
The seeds should be stored in a paper envelope. We have used seed envelopes but any paper envelope will suffice. Label the envelope with the type of seed you're storing and the date collected.
You must ensure the seeds are fully dried before storing them away otherwise the seeds will go mouldy and will not germinate.
For more tips on how to collect and store seed read our article on collecting and storing seed here.
