How to prepare managu seeds in simple steps

Having your own kitchen garden is one thing I’ve always encouraged people, especially my family and friends to have. Just have a small space in your backyard where you grow vegetables and fruits for your own home use.

Plant vegetables of your choice: kales or sukuma wiki (the most common in most Kenyan gardens; have a few stems of tomatoes; spring onions and leeks should not be left out since they act as insect repellent to help manage pest problem; also dhania or coriander to help repel insects such as aphids; spinach; pumpkins for their nutritious fruits and leaves; cowpeas (my mother never forgets these); sagaa.

Last but not least, plant managu.

Managu is one very nutritious vegetable when well prepared. But how do you prepare managu seeds if you don’t want to purchase from agro stores?

How to prepare your own managu seeds

Step 1

Seed Collection:

First you need to collect ripe fruits from a mature managu. To identify mature fruits, they’re purple to black in color. Avoid the green ones.

Step 2

Crushing the fruits:

After you have collected your ripe fruits, put them in a mortar and gently crush them. Avoid applying to match pressure to not to crush seeds. The managu seeds are tiny and white and they’re numerous inside a single fruit.

Step 3

Seed cleaning:

The next step is to clean the seeds by separating them from the rest of the chaff.

We do this by use of water. Scoop everything you have crushed from the mortar and put it in a a water trough. Add water and rinse using your hand.

Step 4

Sieving:

Next step is to use a tea siever or a piece of clothing if you have no access to any other sieving equipment.

Pour the seeds on the siever to get rid of that purple colored water.

Step 5

Drying the seeds:

Now it’s time to dry the seeds.

Spread the seeds over canvas or any drying material you have access to, under the sun and let them dry.

Step 6

Seed Separation:

After 2 – 3 days the seeds would have dried out and the crisp dry.  The seeds are ready for planting and you can either plant them this way together with all the dirt or separate the seeds from the chaff.

How to separate the seeds

To separate the seeds from the crisp dirt, you will further crush the seeds, this time not with the mortar and pestle but by the palm of your hand. Continue crushing until you can clearly pick out individual seeds.

Gently blow over the seeds to get rid of the dirt. Pick out the large particles.

There you have your seeds.

Step 7

Seed packaging:

Use a clean and dry, airtight container to store your seeds. Keep them under cool, dry conditions until you are ready for planting.

Conclusion

Seed management is crucial and one skill you should learn as a farmer. You have to learn how collect and store your own seeds like our parents didn’t to avoid over reliance on commercial seeds.

Now that you know how to prepare your own managu seeds, I know you gonna have a continuous supply of fresh managu in your kitchen and even selling the surplus to your neighbors.

Don’t just stop there, package excess seeds and sell to bring in income.

For more on seed propagation, read: Growing pumpkins: seed preparation

You can further read: How to make money from vegetable seedlings