Giale Nostrale - saving seeds?
 

I need advice on how to save seeds of my Giale Nostrale, a vining squash. Very kind people on here help procure the seeds for me a long time ago and what I have planted this year is the last of them. This variety does not do well in my garden but I feel responsible for making sure it gets out there and perhaps thriving somewhere else so its not lost forever - I hope many of you will take this up when I offer the seeds here

My understanding is to leave the fruit on the vine until it turns brown? Can anyone confirm this? Its already humongous...

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I will be looking forward to take you up on the offer. I planted the last of my seeds last year and produced one good squash. The seeds came from Salt. My season is not long enough to produce seeds to share tho.
Sue

Seed Offer
 

Will follow this. I have a nice trellis made from a cattle panel. All I need next year is the vining plants.
I am interested in keeping it going.
Thanks

Luigiwu, yes, I left them on the vine until they turned fully brown. I also let them grow as big as they would get.

I will also will watch for your seeds. I have long enough season.

The plant died and the tip basically dried up and fell off. Should I wait a bit longer, letting it sit on a table inside? Its not "brown" but more of a golden-deep yellow color right now. Any thoughts?
Next to it are some yard long beans that did really well and were prolific producers. They feel dried-up and stiff so I also took them off the plant - hopefully they are ready too?
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if the squash is fully mature, you should be able to cut it open, and save the seeds.
cut it long way carefully so you don't damage the seeds, and scoop them out.
wash out all the goop using a large sieve. i have a huge colander that serves the same purpose. take the rinsed seeds and put them in a jar or bowl of water. non viable seeds will float to the top. take the remaining seeds, and spread them out on a flat surface, paper plates work. a flat sheet pan should work too. let the seeds thoroughly dry, mix them up now and them so both sides dry. probably take a couple weeks depending on humidity. err on the side caution. leave them out longer if needed. any surface moisture on the seeds will cause mold to form once packaged up, you don't want that.

i saw the other squash i assume you grew. if you did not bag the blossom of the squash, you may have cross pollination with one of the other squash if they were all flowering at the same time.

regarding the beans,

to save seed, you want the bean pods to dry on the vine before you pick them.
seeds will be mature at the leathery stage in a pinch, but dry on the vine is best.
shuck the seeds from the pod. they are dry when you can't dent them with a finger nail,
and they make a tinny noise and bounce if you drop them on a counter top.




keith

[QUOTE=luigiwu;712166]The plant died and the tip basically dried up and fell off. Should I wait a bit longer, letting it sit on a table inside? Its not "brown" but more of a golden-deep yellow color right now. Any thoughts?
Next to it are some yard long beans that did really well and were prolific producers. They feel dried-up and stiff so I also took them off the plant - hopefully they are ready too?
[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1859/30266109458_94033aa9c2_z_d.jpg[/IMG][/QUOTE]


When I grew mine, they were still an oblong, but not narrow at the stem end and a some what different color. My seeds were from ALittleSalt originally. I let the ones for seed grow on the vine until the skin was hard, then cured them in the shade a couple days, then storage.

Luigiwu, I agree with Keith. I have a drying table that worked well. The table is a frame with legs that I built and put rabbit wire as the top surface. It gets air to all of the seeds both from the top and the bottom.

That outer skin is going to be tough. I let mine get more brown, but that was just me being cautious. The squash got so hard that I used a machete and a 4 pound handheld sledgehammer to cut through them.

[QUOTE=rxkeith;712201]
i saw the other squash i assume you grew. if you did not bag the blossom of the squash, you may have cross pollination with one of the other squash if they were all flowering at the same time.
[/QUOTE]

The other stuff I grew was bitter melon. I just naturally assume they were from different families and would not cross polinate? Eep!
Thanks for the info!

[QUOTE=imp;712218]When I grew mine, they were still an oblong, but not narrow at the stem end and a some what different color. My seeds were from ALittleSalt originally. I let the ones for seed grow on the vine until the skin was hard, then cured them in the shade a couple days, then storage.[/QUOTE]

I tried to puncture the skin with my fingernail but all it does is just leave an indentation? I"m guessing that's correct? I"ll leave it on the table until this upcoming weekend and harvest the seeds then.

That should do for harvesting seed, I would think. I always just set my winter types in the "butlers pantry" area until needed after a few days to a week curing in the shade, but those I am eating as well as saving seed.

Gailla Nostrale
 

Hi Luigiwu,
Did this squash seed ever "work out"?
Thanks