Seed Saving: Building a Sustainable Garden
Gardening continues to connect people and places from all generations—the living component that ties us to our ancestors, our culture, and food cultures around the world.
Some of the joys of this shared skill are discovering and trying new things or reviving rare varieties, and seed saving plays an important part.
Terminology
When saving seeds from your garden, there is some lingo I find it helpful to know.
Cross-Pollination: The transfer of pollen from one plant onto the flower of another plant, usually with the help of a pollinator such as a bee or a butterfly.
Open Pollinated: A variety that, when allowed to cross-pollinate only with other members of the same variety, produces offspring that display the characteristic traits of that variety. Tomatoes are a great example of open-pollinated plants. If you plan to save seeds from your favorite tomato plant this year, and you have many different varieties close by, chances are that your crop next year will not be exactly the same as you had planned. Instead, they may have similarities to neighboring tomato plant varieties.
Hybrid: A plant or variety created by crossing two stable, genetically distinct parental populations, also called an F1 hybrid. When seed saving, I tend to steer away from hybrid varieties.
Heirloom: An open-pollinated cultivar that has been grown and shared from generation to generation within a family or community.
Genetically Modified Organism (GMO): Seeds that have been created and developed in a laboratory using biotechnology instead of in a garden. Non-GMO seeds are produced through pollination.
Three Reasons to Save Your Seeds
There are many reasons to save your seeds, and these are the three that are most important to me.
Grow sustainably: Your garden can become self-sufficient and not rely on seed companies.
Save money: Relying on seed companies every year can add to the cost of growing your own food. It’s amazing how many seeds you can get from just one plant! You can sow these seeds next year or share them with family, friends, and fellow gardeners.
Support pollinators: When plants go to seed, it means there will be more flowers in your garden to attract more pollinators—which both supports your local pollinators and increases the chances that your next crop harvest will be a success.
When to Harvest Seeds
The general rule of thumb is that you don’t want to save the seeds from fruit or vegetables at the stage where you would typically eat them. With some exceptions (like tomatoes), most vegetables or fruit from our gardens are not at their full maturity when we harvest them. Growing the variety way past maturity—and the stage at which you would generally want to eat it—is ideal.
When harvesting seeds from legumes, for example, don’t harvest them when they’re bright in color. Instead, wait until they’re brown and dried out. This will provide you with a more viable bean to harvest and sow in the next gardening season.
Cucurbits—such as squash, melons, and cucumbers—are much different. Let this variety grow until they’re yellowing and at full size.
Brassicas (like kale, broccoli, and cabbages) are different again. Heat and sunlight will trigger bolting, which will produce flower heads and ultimately seeds.
How Long Seeds Keep
So you’ve saved seeds from your garden. How long will they be good for? Here’s a chart showing the approximate length of time you can hold on to saved seeds and still expect them to germinate in your garden:
