Saving any bell pepper or hot pepper seeds should be easy, but make sure it is an open pollinated variety first. Choose a few (I took 8) of you best looking hot peppers, displaying the qualities that you would like to see in next year’s crop. Since I am not going to taste them EVER, I just go by what looks big and healthy. If it is hot peppers you are working with, seriously consider wearing rubber gloves every time you touch them. My husband says he doesn’t need the gloves when cutting frozen hot peppers, but I tried just holding some hot paper lantern peppers by the barest tip and I ended up with a burning nose from lightly scratching an itch two hours later.
To save the seed, just barely cut off the stem end of the hot pepper, just to make it easier to slice open. Then, make a slit down the side of the pepper so that it can be splayed open. The seeds are attached to the flesh of the inside, mostly up near the stem end. There are not that many seeds in each pepper and it is good policy to collect seed from more than one pepper. They tend to stick to gloves at this point, so I just gently knock them loose with the knife if I can. Some of the time I have to resort to cutting them off with a little bit of the core flesh, so as not to damage the seed. Unlike with saving tomato or bean seeds, the rest of the pepper is still edible, so they went into zip lock bags for the freezer.
The seeds are moist enough that they need to sit out and dry for a while. I left mine on a piece of labeled waxed paper for a few days. I weighted it down so fall breezes wouldn’t send it flying. When dry, the seeds can be separated from the bits of pepper with a couple of spoons moving them some or with gloved hands. I’m still not going to be touching any part of those hot paper lantern peppers without gloves! I have tried saving seeds in letter envelopes, but the opening is too far down on one side and I tend to spill the seeds out. The little brown jars are reusable and stack nicely in the cool pantry. Plus, they are quaint.
As always, it may be worth your while to do a germination test, to verify that you have collected viable seed. You may even want to make some notes on the jar label about germination rate (my label is masking tape), so that you know how thickly to sow your seeds, whether using pots or open trays filled with soil mix. Then you will be more sure of success and getting your greenhouse seedlings according to schedule, and not be rushing to buy more seeds in a panic.
