[nw_arizona_granny]

I could go on and on about my seed-saving techniques but don’t want to hog the band-width.<<<

Welcome back, I hope you will talk about how you save seeds, there were questions on seed saving earlier, and I am not the one to answer them, as yes, I do save seeds, but not properly.

The wider variety of information posted here, the better it will be for all.

[upcountry miss]

Probably ‘properly’ would hardly describe my seed-saving techniques. I save as most people, I imagine. However over the years,I have developed a few of my own ideas to suit my gardening habits. In my flower beds, I try to obtain seeds paying attention to depth of color, size of bloom or any other attribute I am striving for. Sometimes I am aiming for a dwarf variety or an extra tall strain. During the growing season, I watch my blooms and when I see something I am looking for, I mark that bloom with a piece of yarn tied loosely on the stem near the bloom. Different color yarn can signify different things that I am trying to attain. Darker shades, lighter shades, longer stems, larger blooms or smaller blooms. In my garden diary, I notate what each color strand of yarn stands for and any special attribute i.e. real DEEP rose, variegated color from cross breeding etc. My diary is invaluable to me as I peruse it all winter getting ideas. (my son says the only inheritance he wants is my garden journals.) This summer I noticed that the rose and white ruffled cosmos I plant every year had cross bred and I had candy striped ruffled cosmos. Needless to say I marked the largest and healthiest blooms for seed harvesting. (Should have saved many more as everyone wants some seeds.)
When harvest time comes, I harvest all the blooms with the same color yarn at one time, drying and marking them from the notations in my diary. Zinnias are very easy to handle in this way. I have obtained beautiful shades of rose, salmon and fuchsia by being observant and marking the special shades I want to develop further.
Vegetables I handle in much the same way, looking for the attributes I desire. My husband has diverticulitis so I am always trying to obtain a strain of tomatoes with very few seeds. Unfortunately, this year, I lost all the plants from my special seeds due to a very wet early season, so I had to purchase plants and now am starting anew to get seeds from tomatoes with few seeds.
Your large seed companies harvest indiscriminately, gathering deformed diseased and unripe seeds along with the good ones, so I firmly believe my discriminating process of gathering make my seeds preferable to theirs. I could go on and on but if anyone has questions I would be glad to try and help.