Saving Squash Seeds

This is the process I went through saving seeds from a squash I picked from my garden this year. I wasn’t able to save any seeds from this particular squash, but I think the method is still good though. As with my cucumber project I think the lack of usable seeds is due to the varieties I’m growing. Apparently I have chosen varieties that are not suitable for seed saving, I believe it’s the F1 varieties, but I’ll have to investigate the problem further.

Anyway, here’s what I did:

Cut the squash into halves:

Dump the soft insides into a bowl of water:

(Hmm, that actually looks like something from the movie ‘Alien’ )

Use your fingers to rub out the seeds:

Use a sieve to collect the seeds:

Spread the mix on a filter bag to absorb the rest of the water:

Pick each seed with a pair of tweezers and move them to a new filter bag. This is were I began noticing a problem, as the seeds were divided into two different size groups:

The big ones looked like commercial seeds, but what’s the deal with the small ones??:

When I allowed all of the seeds to dry up for several days suddenly NONE of the seeds looked healthy:

I guess I have to use better seeds for the mother plant before this will work. Another possibillity is that the squash fruit wasn’t ripe enough. It didn’t change color as I was told is necessary with cucumbers, if you want to save seeds from cucumbers.