How To Save Basil Seeds

Basil is a staple in most kitchens and I love having fresh basil I can harvest right off the plant. Learning how to save your own basil seeds means you don’t have to buy basil plants or seed packets again!

I used to buy all my herb plants already grown because I thought growing herbs from seed was too hard. I was right, starting most herbs from seed is hard, but I found out that basil is not one of those herbs.

Basil is actually very easy to grow from seed and it can save you a lot of money. I now start tons of basil seedlings right alongside my tomatoes.

Now that I have so many basil plants I wanted to learn how to save seeds form the plants. I also learned that saving basil seeds is a pretty simple process.

How To Save Basil Seeds

Before you start saving any seeds from your basil plants you need to identify the type of basil you are growing. Here are the steps you need to take in order save your own basil seeds.

Identify Your Basil Type

Plants come in three main types which are open-pollinated, hybrid, and genetically modified. Both hybrid and genetically modified plant types do not produce good seed.

If you save seeds from hybrid or GMO plants they will either not grow or produce a plant different than the plant you saved seeds from. The good news is that you can save seeds from open-pollinated varieties.

Your seed packet or plant tag should say whether the plants are hybrid or open-pollinated. F1 seeds are hybrid, so make sure you have the right plants.

Let Your Basil Plants Flower

When you are growing basil for consumption you are always snipping off the basil flowers because they cause the leaves to taste bitter.

I had to really get used to leaving the plant alone and just letting it flower. Because it does cause the leaves to taste bitter, it might be a good idea to only let one or two of your plants flower.

The flower spikes will eventually shoot out of the plant and produce little white basil flowers. These flowers attract many pollinators that can benefit your garden.

Collect The Seeds

My basil plants produced mature seeds about one month after I let them start flowering. It takes a long time for the basil plant to produce good seeds, but they also produce a lot.

Each “set” of flowers will drop off and your plant will be left with green seed heads. These seed heads will eventually turn brown and that is the signal that your seeds are ready for harvest.

Wait until the seeds have turned black inside the brown seed head. If you harvest white or green seeds they are not mature and will not produce plants.

Once my flower spikes started to turn brown I plucked the seed heads off the spike and brought them inside for cleaning.

Clean Your Basil Seeds

To get your seeds out of the seed head you need to crush them. I simply rubbed the seed heads in between my fingers to release the seeds.

Once you have broken all the seed heads up, you need to clean the chaff from the basil seeds. I pulled the brown pieces of chaff out of the pile of seeds, but you could also winnow them.

To winnow the seeds you can use a fan or simply blow on the seeds. If you blow lightly enough you can make the light chaff fly away while the heavier black seeds are left in a pile.

Dry Your Basil Seeds

You basil seeds should already be pretty dry, but you should dry them for a few more days before storage. I set my seeds in front of a fan set on low to remove any extra moisture.

A week or two of drying should be all the seeds need to prepare them for storage.

Store Your Basil Seeds

Your seeds are now clean, dry, and ready for storing until next year. I store my seeds in these free printable seed packets and label them with the basil variety and date.

That’s the whole process for saving basil seeds. Now you should have hundreds of basil seeds so you can grow as much basil as you want next year.

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