What went wrong?

Imagine this scenario: You are planning for an emergency situation, so you purchased a collection of open-pollinated vegetable seeds. Saving seeds from year to year was your goal. You need to feed your family so this is serious stuff.

You plant and care for your garden and have a good crop. Now it comes time for seed collection. You carefully harvest and fully dry seed for next year's garden. "All set", you think!

Next year, you plant and oh no what happened?! You have some of the oddest tasting and looking vegetables that you have ever seen. Cross-pollination is what happened.

Many plant varieties will readily cross-pollinate. This causes your carefully saved seed to produce a vegetable that does not look like or taste like the parent plant. It may not be edible at all. Here are a few examples of vegetable seed that will cross pollinate with each other.

• Swiss chard and Beets.
• Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Kale, Brussels Sprouts, and Collard Greens.
• Carrot and Queen Anne's Lace.
• Corn- all varieties will cross pollinate with each other.
• Yellow Crook Neck Squash, Zucchini Squash, Sugar Pie Pumpkin, and Acorn Squash.