There’s just something about seeds. Each seed has amazing potential. Often, one tomato seed can produce over 100 tomatoes. When I look at a seed, I immediately envision a beautiful harvest of some sort. And poring over the many seed catalogs that arrive shortly after New Year’s adds to the anticipation of things to come.
I am a seed junkie. I don’t really need to buy many seeds. For the most part I already know what I’m going to plant. I begin planning for the next season before my current garden has been put to sleep for the winter. Stoll, if a store has a seed display, I always stop and look.
There is something very satisfying (and addictive!) about saving your own seeds. I save many of my seeds from things I grow in my garden. For that reason, I try to grow as many heirloom varieties as possible (as opposed to hybrid varieties). That way, I know that my plants are producing authentic seed for future use.
I currently save seed from 10 varieties of tomatoes, 7 varieties of peppers, bush beans, pole, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, lettuce, arugula, bok choi, cantaloupe, radishes, basil, parsley, dill… I’m sure I’ve left something out. Once you start, you’ll be hooked. My Cherokee Purple tomatoes are from seeds that I scooped out of a farmstand tomato, purchased in South Carolina while visiting my sister years ago. My cantaloupes are all from a mystery vine that just showed up in my garden (probably courtesy of a passing bird!). And I am hoping to have beet seeds this year (it takes 2 years). Although I save a lot of seeds, I also purchase some seeds, so I always have quite a collection.
A big problem with collecting all of these seeds is keeping them organized when they are drying and then storing them when they are ready. A few years ago I decided to tackle my disorganized collection of seeds and vowed to get them under control! I ended up purchasing 2 photo storage boxes. Each box has 16 inner boxes for storing 4″ x 6″ photos. They are plastic and keep my seeds nicely protected from the humidity. I keep most of my saved seeds in small paper coin envelopes which are easy to label and store. I’ve labelled each of the smaller plastic photo boxes, so now it’s easy to find what I’m looking for.
Saving your own seed can be time consuming. i plan to do the more tedious tasks during the winter lull: after New Year’s and before it’s time to start my seeds for the upcoming garden season. And let your garden help you out. My cosmos, snapdragons, cleome, and nasturtiums all grow back in the spring from seeds they have thoughtfully self-sown the previous fall.
Our grandchildren love to explore all of the garden areas. It is such a wonderful opportunity to teach them about the different aspects of gardening while they are hunting for strawberries or looking for monarch butterfly caterpillars. Once there are pole beans to snack on, I encourage my “grands” to leave the big bumpy ones on the vines. They don’t taste that good anyway, and the kids know that I’m saving them for the seeds inside. They all know that if we don’t have the seeds, we won’t have the plants next year!
