I took an overgrown, yellow cucumber, scooped out the cucumber seeds, placed them in a jar of water and let them ferment for a couple of days. But, when I dried them they wound up looking like this. What did I do wrong?
by thegraduate8
I took an overgrown, yellow cucumber, scooped out the cucumber seeds, placed them in a jar of water and let them ferment for a couple of days. But, when I dried them they wound up looking like this. What did I do wrong?
by thegraduate8
4 Comments
they look like empty infertile seeds to me.
Very few, if any, of those are fertilized, and therefore they are just the shells with no seed in them.
A few things could have caused this; perhaps not enough pollinating insects around at the time of flowering, or if you grew a hybrid* with cytoplasmic male sterility, there wasn’t any actual pollen. Cucumbers tend to have somewhat wonky fertility anyway in my experience.
If any of them feel fat and full, then you did get some fertilization and it looks like there might be a few.
But yeah. These are a bust; sorry.
* Not all hybrids, yada yada.
Maturity may not be the issue here, but in the future to rule that out, go ahead and let the fruit stay on the vine until the vine starts to brown and dry up. Last year I let my summer squash get huge and sit around for months before I split them open to get the seed. The seeds were fully mature and germination was very good.
I don’t think those will be viable, and you don’t really need to ferment cucumber seeds. If there are some seeds there that don’t look hollow, keep them, ditch the rest.