The basics of seed-saving and why it’s worth the effort
What kind of space do potential seed-savers need to have?
If you’re growing anything to eat, you have enough space to save seeds, too. Let’s say someone’s growing one tomato in a pot on their deck. They may want to consider saving seeds from even just one tomato — the one that’s the most beautiful, tastiest — so that next year hopefully they have an even better harvest.
I always tell people to just do it, and you get some major successes, you get some failures. But that’s true with all gardening.
Let’s say you have a window box with herbs. Would that work?
You can save your herbs’ seeds. As you watch them go to flower, watch the stem. As it starts to brown and turn dry, you know that it’s finished feeding the next generation. And you can snip that seed head off once it turns dry and brown. Coax out the seeds with your fingers and sift out the chaff with a colander, and then you have your seeds for the next year.
If you’re a starter seed-saver, what’s the easiest plant to start with?
Beans, peas. Anything in a pod. You just wait for the pod to dry out on the plant. You’re thinking about what stage that’s done pulling nourishment from the parent. And for something like beans, you look for it to get crispy and crunchy; it’s as mature as it’s gonna get then. Pull it off and shell it and save those seeds.
Tomatoes are like the gateway vegetable, even though it’s a fruit. There are really easy ways to save their seeds. I do a more complicated ferment method that helps increase the germination rate, does a little disease control, and makes it easier to clean the protective gel coating off the seeds, but some people can be intimidated by it.
How to get started
If you’re up to seed-saving, Taylor advises looking for ripe beans, black-eyed pea plants, flowers, herbs, okra, squashes, winter squashes, peppers, and gourds through September and October.
Pepper and squash seeds need not be fermented; rinsing before drying is enough.
Can regular people be seed-savers and seed-keepers?
Oh yeah, that is who does seed-keeping. It’s kind of an anomaly that at this time, in this place, there are so few people keeping seeds.
Around the world, it’s still such a common practice. We’ve benefited a lot, since about 100 years ago, from the increase in small-scale seed companies. But in the 10,000-year history of humans growing food, domesticating food crops, that is the centerpiece of the work: making sure you’re leaving some of your harvest to go to seed so that you have a crop the following year.
So it’s certainly something regular people do, and I’m hoping more and more people get back to that.
Even one tomato plant or a window box can provide enough seeds for next year. Here's a look at the basics of seed-saving and why it’s worth the effort.