When announcing and starting the seed network, there was one recurring theme in conversations I had with others or in comments left here:
Be sure to tell people how to properly save seeds!
Often the person who said this then went on to tell me where the seed saving guide they personally wrote could be found, and suggested I promote it.
I too have written a number of seed saving posts! Rather than go through them and link to them all here, I suggest using the search box on the front of this blog to search for seed saving. Most of the posts I wrote were short and introductory in nature. For many people my posts may be a good place to start, but you will probably want to read further. For more detail, I suggest looking elsewhere on the Internet. A few online guides I’ve come across and can recommend are:
International Seed Saving Institute
For those who want to read about seed saving in rigorous detail, I would suggest Carol Deppe’s Book Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties. Another good book is Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed.
The introduction of the Real Seeds guide really says it all, copied below:
You want healthy seed that is true-to-type and keeps well. You need to ask yourself these questions:
CROSSING
- Will these plants cross with any others?
- Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? (Usually bad)
- How does this happen? (Wind? Insects?)
- What can I do to control this?
POPULATION
- Do I need a minimum number to get healthy seed? (e.g. do they breed as group?)
- Or do the plants live on their own and self-pollinate?
- Have I chosen the best plants for seed?
SEED EXTRACTION AND DRYING
- Do I need to do anything special to the seed ?
- Is my seed well dried and well labeled?
The answers are different for each vegetable. So look in the appropriate section below, and you’ll know what to do. Its all pretty easy but you do need to look it up in each case.
If you know the answers to the questions above, for the particular variety you are saving seeds from, then you know how to save seeds properly.
Finding the answers to these questions usually requires some detective work, and it’s not always just a matter of looking them up. Seed saving is not always an exact science, and many even very experienced seed savers will disagree over some of these points. It can also depend on your climate and pollinating insects in your garden, as well as your proximity to other gardens or farms growing the same varieties.
The best thing to do is look up all of these questions in at least a few different sources and, where there are conflicts in the advice they offer, try to research further. You can ask questions here, on other Internet forums or to other seed saving gardeners you trust. Otherwise, just experiment.
If you are experimenting or are unsure of the quality of the seeds you save, don’t share them with beginning gardeners or without warning the person receiving them!
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