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Share the Love – Seed Saving


Onion going to seed

When I started to take an interest in permaculture, one of the first things I wanted to learn but had no reference to guide me on was seed saving. The idea of seed saving felt close to the core of a regenerative way of life: life loves to live, and regenerates itself, and this can be harnessed to provide for our needs. I felt that, like sunlight and rain, seed should come for free, letting the garden function with a natural life cycle.

To begin with, I bumbled through, with some successes but plenty of unexplained failures as I tried to propagate veggies from saved seeds. Then came a wonderful opportunity to volunteer at Michel and Jude Fanton’s Seedsavers garden and seed bank in Byron Bay, Australia. Six months of working a couple of days a week with these inspiring people in that inspiring environment was a turning point in my understanding of a lot of things about life in general… but also of the fact that seed saving is not difficult at all, and very rewarding. With a few basic understandings, you can make a good start with seed saving, and I reckon a lot of these basics can be distilled into quite a short read that I want to share with you in this article. I intend it to be the sort of easily digested starting point that I wish I had when I started out.

There is now a lot more information about this subject online than there was years ago (check this out for example) but I thought that on the one hand it could be useful for those PRI readers who haven’t yet explored this much as yet to offer some thoughts on the subject, and on the other hand, those readers with much more knowledge of seed saving than I have, may be encouraged to share some of their experiences online by commenting or writing their own articles on the topic.

The many beauties of seed saving

A surplus of seed is easily generated, allowing you to share your seed, and other gardeners are happy to share alike. Seed sharing is wonderfully convivial — garden diversity grows for free, and whole communities can benefit. Decentralised seed saving networks preserve the genetic diversity of food plants and other useful plants in community stewardship and prevent private monopolization of genetic resources.

Plants adapt to their environment: locally adapted varieties can soon emerge when you save your own seed. You get to select the characteristics you like — and improve your plants.
Apart from their obvious reproductive use, flowering and seeding plants add interest and dimension to the garden, and encourage garden biodiversity, providing habitat and food for beneficial insects.

Open pollinated varieties

Open pollinated varieties of plants (also referred to as heritage or heirloom varieties) will grow ‘true to type’ when seed is saved. This means you get the characteristics you want and expect from the plant — especially important in food plants. Hybrid plants (as varieties sold in nurseries or grown from the seed of supermarket vegetables usually are) tend to produce seed that is unreliable — it will produce throw-backs to varieties that the hybrid was artificially bred from.

Open pollinated seed is available from your local community seed network, organic seed suppliers, and some mainstream seed sellers (usually labelled ‘organic’, ‘heritage’ or ‘heirloom’).

Maintaining variety characteristics

If you wish to maintain the characteristics of a variety, cross pollination with varieties of the same species needs to be avoided. This is no hard and fast rule — you may like to experiment with plant breeding by letting things cross, but the unpredictability this produces is often undesirable. In plants that self pollinate, or mostly self pollinate, this is not so much of a concern. Examples of these are lettuces, beans, peas and tomatoes — these are nice and easy to preserve varieties. Some plants are very ‘promiscuous’ pollinators and liable to cross with plants of the same species growing anywhere near them — for instance, corn, cucurbits (like pumpkins and cucumbers), and brassicas (for instance broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are all one species — Brassica oleracea). Different species do not cross-pollinate.

Selecting plants for seed production

Only your favourite and best performing plants should be allowed to go to seed. This allows the quality of varieties to be maintained and improved. Choose healthy, disease- and pest-resistant plants with good production. Beware of mistaking ‘bolting’ to flower with vigorous growth — you don’t want veggies that bolt to flower rather than produce a good crop. Resist the temptation to harvest the best of each variety. Instead, mark them (e.g. with a bit of tape or string or a stake nearby), and let them go to seed. The less you harvest from a plant, the more energy it can put into producing good quantities of good seed. Remember though, that removing low, senescent, or yellowing leaves can actually improve a plant’s vigour. Seed producing plants need to be nurtured and protected — they are giving you the genetic basis of your future crops.

Preserving seed for later

You may like to plant seed as soon as it is harvested, or simply let it drop and allow plants to ‘self-seed’ before thinning to the best seedlings, and possibly transplanting. However, if you wish to save seed for next season, or for years, a few simple steps will help preserve it.

  • Seed keeps longest if kept in cool, dry and relatively ‘airless’ conditions. If seeds are damp, they get mouldy, or germinate prematurely. Harvest seed on a sunny day when the plant is dry.
  • Remove as much non-seed material (chaff) as possible. Sieves of different grades are very helpful for this — you can purchase or construct purpose made sieves, but I find a couple of different kitchen sieves quite adequate for this job.
  • When seeds are ‘clean’ (no or minimal chaff remaining), place them in a paper bag, and hang it in a warm dry spot like a window for a couple of weeks until thoroughly dry. Then keep the bag in a dark cupboard. Seed may be sealed in jars or ziplock bags once thoroughly dry. Silicone moisture absorbent can be kept with it to reduce humidity.

Testing viability

It is useful to know the viability of seed — how likely it is to germinate. This provides a quality control for saved seed. To calculate viability in your usual seed raising conditions, count how many seeds you plant and record the variety, date and number planted. Count how many seedlings emerge each week thereafter for four weeks and record these numbers. To get percentage viability at a given week, divide the number germinated by the number panted and multiply by 100. For instance, if 20 were planted and 15 germinate, that’s 75% viability.

Raising plants from seed

Experiment with what works for you. Generally speaking, it is not a good idea to work all garden soil to a fine tilth to plant small seeds into — it dries out too easily, and is more erodible. Moreover, this requires bare soil, and soil health is best maintained if there is full groundcover (living plants and/or mulch) at all times. Bare soil readily becomes ‘capped’ and can be observed to start repelling water from the soil surface. If there are plenty of seeds to throw around and you don’t mind a low germination rate, they can be broadcast into the garden without preparation or bare soil, or surplus seed heads can be chopped up and used as mulch, which will provide new seedlings.

Most plants are best raised in a controlled environment (partial shade, conveniently placed for watering) before transplanting to the garden. Small seeds can be grown to seedlings in a shallow seed box or ‘flat’, then transplant the best seedlings into growing medium (a mix of 50% by volume mature compost or worm castings, and 50% river sand, makes a very nice plant raising medium) to grow out to about 10-15cm high, when they go out into the garden.

Bottomless, non-tapering ‘pots’ (e.g. milk cartons with top and bottom removed, or cardboard or plant fibre tubes) are good for this growing out stage, as there is minimal root disturbance on transplanting to the garden. The beauty of this intensive method is that you select the best seedlings, pamper them until they are strong, and then have complete control over their placement in the garden. Large seeds can go direct into growing medium, or into the garden with some compost.

Quick seed saving tips for some favourite annual plants

  • Lettuces: cut whole plant when most of seed head is fluffy, upend in a dry bucket and leave for a week or so before cleaning seeds from chaff. (The stalk will continue to ‘feed’ the seeds for a few days after cutting.)
  • Umbellifers (parsley, carrot, dill, fennel, etc., that produce umbel shaped flowers): cut whole plant when flowers gone and seedhead nearly dry, upend in dry bucket and leave a while before cleaning.
  • Beans, peas, snow peas: mark best plant(s) and refrain from harvesting. Seed is mature when pods are dry and rattly.
  • Tomatoes: let fruit ripen on plant as much as possible. Squeeze seeds and pulp into a glass jar, and add a little water if it’s not nice and juicy. Leave it in a warm place where you can keep an eye on it — e.g. above the kitchen sink. When it goes frothy on top, this means it has fermented and will keep better. Wash seeds in a sieve, dry on shiny paper before transferring to a paper bag to dry properly. (Or skip all this to plant straight away!)
  • Melons: as for tomatoes — ferment before drying. Only let one variety of each species flower at any time.
  • Pumpkins: simply take seeds from ripe fruit when you eat it, wash and then dry on shiny paper, then dry further in a bag. Pumpkins readily cross and varietal purity is a bit tricky to maintain, but there are different species, so you can grow a few different kinds without causing crossing: Cucurbita maxima, Queensland blue, etc; C. moschata- grammas, butternuts etc ; Cucurbita pepo – squash, baby pumpkins.
  • Zucchinis and Cucumbers: leave a fruit to fully ripen (normally they are picked early for best flavour). When you do this, it will sap the plant’s energy and you can forget about picking more from that plant for eating. They can reach enormous sizes. They are ready when they have a firm skin and usually change to an orangey-brown colour. Ferment as for tomatoes. (And you can experiment with cooking the mature fruit — e.g. in a curry.)
  • Brassicas: for practical purposes to avoid variety mixing, choose one European brassica (e.g. broccoli or cauliflower) and one Asian brassica (e.g. Pak Choi, Tat Soi) and don’t let others flower. Rocket and mustards are separate species. At least two of each variety should be allowed to flower — cross pollination gives better seed set. Seeds are ready when the seed head is dry and rattly. As with lettuces, cut just before entirely dry, and dry in a bucket.

For those who want more detailed information on seed saving, here’s a friendly plug for a fantastic practical manual on seed saving: “The Seed Savers’ Handbook” by Michel and Jude Fanton can be ordered here.

A final word – local seed networks are great!

There is something uniquely convivial about a local seed network — a group of people who exchange seeds (and other planting material like cuttings, rootstock and tubers) that they have grown and saved themselves. The surplus generated by seed saving encourages a culture of generosity that really embodies the permaculture ethic of “give away surplus”. A local seed network shares not just the physical planting material, but tips, skills and experience, building not only the biodiversity in members’ farms and gardens, but also the collective knowledge of the group. I highly recommend finding a local seed network near you (the Seedsavers Network supports and promotes local seed networks in Australia, and many Aussie LSNs can be found at www.seedsavers.net/local-seed-networks), or if there isn’t one close by yet, then why not get one started.

I can attest that this can be as easy as showing up at an event where you expect to find like minded people, a clipboard and pen in hand, asking for names and contact details of interested people. Knock on the door of houses with interesting gardens – chances are, the gardener will be only too happy to talk gardening and seeds with you. Connect with other community groups, like Landcare groups and Neighbourhood Centres. Email makes group networking very easy, you can simply create your own mailing list (using BCC if members prefer not to share their email address with other members) or use a web based group platform like Yahoo Groups. Maintaining a mailing list is a task that one keen group member can take on without much impost on their time at all, and this duty can be rotated among members. Activities are organised to suit the group. Our LSN here in the Great Lakes is in the routine of meeting monthly, at a different member’s place each time, and bringing along home made food to share along with surplus seeds and produce. The combined energy of a group like this is wonderful, and everyone’s gardens gather diversity for free.

6 Comments

  1. This is an excellent article. I just began my season’s savings with an eggplant that had gotten out of hand under the mulch! I’ll likely keep the test plants going this winter in the greenhouse.

  2. A lot of useful information in a short space- a great introduction to seed saving. This is our first year saving seed, the children especially are very excited about it. Clearly this is not an optional skill, it’s a must-have one for all of us who want to grow our own food and be as self-sufficient as possible.

  3. It never ceases to amaze me the wealth of information that this site generates. I LOVE you guys! Please please PLEASE keep up the posting as without you, there are many of us who would have to hunt far and wide for this precious stuff :)

  4. Yes, I agree with narf7. I much prefer to come to this site to get my news as the mainstream media is mainly concerned with delivering us with the bad news, here we get the good news.

  5. I saved seeds and share with a new neighbor…she apreciatte a lot the seeds….we grown herbs,peepers, beans, small tre in a pots.

  6. What a great article! Thank you for putting all that information in such a well written and concise article. Through Permaculture Noosa we have a group of people, interested in Seed Saving, who are getting together monthly on 2nd Thur of the month 9.30 – 11.30am at Cooroy Golf Club. All are welcome. Your article is a wonderful inspiration to us all!

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