"Saving seeds is totally easy, Go For It!" is Dan's advice to all of us gardeners who are wondering about saving our own seeds. Many of us feel intimidated, but Dan assures us that we will learn as we go along. Start with one kind and go from there. Humans have been saving seeds for 10,000 years. It's important that we save seeds on so many levels, it's a wide spread movement through the Transition Network that now has over 700 communities on board.
With world situations the way the are, the #1 priority is Food Self Reliance but what is being missed is, "We need Seed!" says Dan. "Good Seed, not Hybrid and not GMO seed. We need community seed banks. Seedy Saturdays are seed banks, but it's not enough."
Communities need to come together on this issue and make decisions for the whole. They need to ask questions and figure out how they are going to work together, where will the food be grown, can we convince land owners to use the land for growing food instead of a few sheep. We are getting no leadership from our governments, we need to become self-reliant communities and maybe even buy land for the community to grow it's food.
The First thing we need to keep in mind the kinds of seeds we grow. For example, we need Tomatoes but not just for fresh eating but also paste tomatoes for sauces with beans and grains for year round eating. Another consideration is nutritional value that plants offer. For example, when looking at eggplants and peppers, eggplants have nearly zero nutritional value whereas peppers are more valuable in minerals and vitamins. Looking at beans, most people plant fresh green or yellow beans, but don't consider planting dry beans for protein and carbs for year round eating. Quinoa, amaranth and flax are good crops for protein as well.
The second consideration is How Much seed do you save? How many are in your community and how much do we need to grow? Bulking up on seeds now is worth consideration. The question most asked is "HOW do we do it?" Answer, utilize experienced seed savers as Mentors.
Begin with crop categories, break it down by category and have a mentor for each seed category. Cross pollination is the biggest concern, but many of the plants don't cross pollinate. Tomatoes don't cross pollinate, nor do peppers, lettuces, beans, or grains. Their flowers are self-pollinated and seeds come true.
Crops that do cross pollinate are corn, squash, leeks, and brassicas where bugs and wind play a role, but if you only grow one variety and if you don't have a neighbour growing a variety in the same family, you don't have to worry either.
Some crops like beets and carrots are bi-annuals and need to be over-wintered to produce seed. In our climate, heavy mulching will allow seeds to produce in the second season.
When collecting beans or peas or brassicas, anything with a pod, (including lentils, favas, chickpeas,soy beans) allow them to dry until brittle - the inside bean will be dry enough not to allow your finger nail to penetrate. With brassicas, which include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, kale, wait till the pod is brittle, crack it open, and when the seeds will have turned black they are ready to harvest. Take branches of seed pods and stomp with your feet on a tarp to release the thousands of seeds. Remove the shaft using screens with different size screens. Screens are a seeds savers most practical tool and can be found in garage sales, or the hardware store, with different size holes.
You can eat your crop and still save seeds. For instance with lettuce, if you pick off the outer leaves and leave the center, and let it go to seed. Lettuce will look completely different when it goes to seed. It will form a candle bra of yellow flowers similar to dandelion fluff. When the seeds form, shake them into a bucket. One word of caution, seed heads are the action centers for bugs because it's the perfect place to lay eggs into. Letting seeds sit on screens will prevent eggs and bugs from developing in your seeds.
Hybrid seeds will not come true, therefore grow open pollinated varieties. All small seed companies have good seeds, use them.
