Sustainable Living

How to get Seeds from Broccoli

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This circle of life thing is really cool…

Following on from the How to Grow Broccoli post (which looked at the life-cycle of the broccoli plant, resulting produce, and return to the soil), this one is all about how to get the seeds from the mature plant, including how to dry and store those seeds for next season’s planting.

If left to its own devices, the broccoli plant will produce a large volume of seed pods. I will normally leave one plant in the ground just for this purpose – push it out of the way so other things can go into the ground.

When the majority of the pods have dried up and turned brown, cut whole bunches off the plant. Leave them to dry further, then get the pods into paper bags.

pods of a dried broccoli

You will get from 8 to 10+ seeds per pod, and as can be seen in these photos, there are many, many pods.

seeds within pods

After a few weeks in a paper bag, seeds will spill out of the pods all by themselves. Store the bag in a cool dry spot.

dried seeds paper bag

Steps to Saving Your Own Broccoli Seeds

  • Grow a broccoli plant!
  • When the edible bits are done with, push it down to grow something else, but keep the roots in the soil
  • Let it keep growing until the pods develop and eventually go brown
  • Cut off the pod branches and hang them somewhere cool and dry for a week
  • Put the pods into a paper bag and leave in a cool dry place
  • Store until ready to plant out, but not more than 2 full years
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14 thoughts on “How to get Seeds from Broccoli”

  1. Broccoli has the highest amounts of Sulphoraphane and Sulphoraphane is what really makes broccoli more incredible than people may realize.

    Sulphoraphane:
    Anti-cancer,
    Anti-inflammatory,
    Antioxidant,
    Regrows nerve cells,
    Regrows brain cells,
    Promotes Autophagy without fasting,
    Helps maintain healthg colesterol and brown fat,
    It has also shown promise in treating Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheiner because it helps regrow nerve and brain cells with its affects on the NRF2 pathways.

    I take a Sulphoraphane supplement that would require a kilo(2.2 pounds) of broccoli to get. It is amazing and helping me in so many ways. I have a chronic inflammatory condition and Western med doctors have been useless to help for 10 years. So I’ve been turning to natural medicine and low and behold? Licorice root extract healed my ulcers, broccoli(Sulphoraphane) is reducing my inflammation and reducing my chronic pain, helping my GI track, improving my vision, and I haven’t even been taking it for long term healing yet.

    I am going to start sprouting and came across this article because I am going to harvest my own seeds once set up.

    There is a lot of research about Sulphoraphane and it does even more than I listed.

    I am a disabled combat veteran and after a decade of living in misery and pain, actual healing comes from real medicine which surrounds us in nature.

    I used to hate broccoli and now it’s my new best friend.

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  5. Thank you! We have three mature plants that have flowered and gone to seed. Our first time doing this, I wasn’t sure of the best time to clip the pods. This was exactly the info I was looking for when I googled 🙂

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  7. This season I let one of our broccoli plants flower. I is still putting on beautiful yellow flowers. Patiently waiting for it to go to seed so I can collect them. Each year I am letting things go to seed to collect more and more of my own seeds. In a few years I won’t need to buy seeds or nursery plants for the veg garden.

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    • Great to have you on the site Emily. It sure helps when the plants we grow give us another chance to grow them! Am very keen to see how these Broccoli seeds do because will be the first time with these ones.

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