Saving Seeds

I know we have another topic on this, but found this today and thought I'd share:

http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/garden/07602.html

Quick Facts...
Home Gardeners were perpetuating and improving vegetable varieties through seed selection before there were commercial seed producers.
Garden plants are wind, insect or self-pollinated.
Seed saved from self-pollinated Crops are most likely to come true to variety.
Biennial Crops do not bear seed the first year.
Hybrids do not come true from seed.

The art of saving seed has been practiced by Gardeners long before there were commercial seed producers. In fact, most of the vegetables and flowers we have today owe their existence to the fact that these early Gardeners, with an eye for quality, saved the seed of their best plants, sowed them the next year, and in this way improved the species.

Please go to link for the rest of the article.

Great link!

I am about to spend some of my hard earned money on a book called: Seed to Seed, seed saving and growing techniques for vegetable gardeners.

The concept of having seed that are adapted to my soil has me quite intrigued.

12acrehome wrote:Great link!

I am about to spend some of my hard earned money on a book called: Seed to Seed, seed saving and growing techniques for vegetable gardeners.

The concept of having seed that are adapted to my soil has me quite intrigued.

I have that book and think it is a really good book.

Rohn wrote:

12acrehome wrote:Great link!

I am about to spend some of my hard earned money on a book called: Seed to Seed, seed saving and growing techniques for vegetable gardeners.

The concept of having seed that are adapted to my soil has me quite intrigued.

I have that book and think it is a really good book.

Thanks Rohn. With all the hoopla organic, and homesteading get in general today, there are a lot of what I call fluff books out there. Glad this one comes recommended

Keith

I guess I need to check out that book too. We've been saving seeds, but we've just started and mostly just using common sense with it. we did lose some pink hull pea seeds this year. Went to check our seeds to plan our garden and bugs got to the pea seeds.

I was going to save some of my seeds from tomatoes and peppers last year but got too busy and never did do it. All I saved were some sunflower seeds that I am hoping to plant this year, and see what happens.

It seems we are all trying to learn this skill

It would be nice to save enough seeds to trade with others who are saving seeds too.

Rohn wrote:It would be nice to save enough seeds to trade with others who are saving seeds too.

Yes it would. Have you seen these people??

http://www.seedsavers.org/

I keep thinking about joining, cost of membership is $40.00 / year. But I am not sure about the volume expected, nor about how they regulate seed trades.

If this topic gets enough interest I would be glad to help with a Christian Homestead seed exchange.

I have seen Seedsavers. org. But I am really intimidated by too many people and tend to stick to the smaller sites where you can feel like you know people better. I have bought seeds from Seed Savers Exchange for the last couple of years.

I have been thinking about doing a seed train. Guess I can set it up sometime next week so we can all have some new seeds to try out if I get enough of a response.

could you explain the concept of a seed train? Is it like an exchange, or a common draw house??

I'm interested.

On the seed train the person who starts it, which would be me, selects some seeds to share. (mine are mostly heirloom), they send the box to the next person on the list who goes through the box and takes what they want out of it and put what seeds they may have extra of in it. Then that person mails the box to the next person on the list until it ends up back at the original location.