Did you know that with proper selection and care you can grow your own seed stock right in your home garden? Planting heirloom fruits, vegetables, and herbs can provide you with an unlimited supply of garden seeds for generations to come. Read on for my top reasons why you should start saving seeds this season.
It Will Reduce The Overall Cost of Gardening
Saving your own seeds can be a very economical way to garden! Aside from purchasing online, seeds can be found in all sorts of places from swaps to public seed libraries and even in the wild. Whether you begin with purchased, gifted, or foraged seed, it will soon become the gift that keeps on giving. With isolated or open-pollination practices you can continue to harvest seed year after year and never have to purchase that variety again!
Your Plants Will Adapt to Your Environment
When you save seeds from the healthiest fruits that your garden produces you’re taking the genetics from that very plant and passing them on to the next generation. That means that as seasons pass you’ll be preserving the most desirable traits of that plant as well as the hardiness it’s developed from living in your particular patch of dirt! Amazingly, these adaptations include but are not limited to: pest and disease resistance, cold or heat tolerance, soil condition, and sun exposure. It’s pretty mind-blowing the difference you will notice from a plant that was grown in an industrial greenhouse from commercial seed stock versus one that you’ve been planting at home for years.
It’s Fun and Easy
Seed saving for the most part is a hobby more than a chore, and is pretty easy to figure out! There’s one thing that Mother Nature designed fruits and vegetables to do and that’s procreate, which is great for us hunter gatherers. Just you wait – soon you’ll be eyeballing flowers and herbs in a whole new way, and searching on the internet for how to propagate apple seeds from your neighbor’s tree. You’ll want to pick your bounty when it’s far past its prime, normally at the end of its peak season and way beyond the point of edibility. The seeds from these fruit will be fully mature and will have the best chance of germination come the next season. Seed Savers Exchange has a wonderful chart for seed saving which can be found on their website here.
With all these fantastic reasons I’m sure you’ll be anxious to start collecting seeds this season! Let me know in the comments below what fruit, vegetable, flower or herb you’d most like to try harvesting.
