New Season, New Seeds

I’m taking advantage of the few extra minutes of light today on longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice, by extending my garden time.

Here in the northern hemisphere, the Earth is fully tilted in towards the sun; my body mirrors the planet, fully tilted in towards my plants, looking closely for one thing: seed. For me, a change in season signals collecting the best of what has passed and planting that into the future. As it is, I’m harvesting seed from expiring plants, collecting only from the strongest, most vigorous individuals and letting the rest return to the earth.

There are many reasons to save seeds, many ways to collect seeds, and many methods for preserving seeds.

Here are 5 reasons to savor the seeds of your favorite crops:

1. Saving seed allows you to select a plant for your backyard microclimate. After about 3-5 years of saving seed, you’ll have a variety of a crop that is perfectly adapted to your environmental conditions to thrive and tolerate typical local elements.

2. Saving seed can give you the tastiest, most productive, attractive and pest-resistant variety of your plants. Save seed from the best of the best in your backyard and it will only get better as time goes on, planting each year with the previous year’s seed.

3. Saving seed saves you money. You can buy any variety of heirloom, open pollinated plant once, then have seed for years to come, free from your plant! One seed produces one plant, which produces hundreds (maybe thousands) of seeds!

4. Saving seed preserves seed variety. As big agribusiness buys up smaller seed companies, fewer seed vendors means fewer seed varieties. We can preserve biodiversity by growing our own [heirloom] varieties of crops.

Not all seeds are the same when it comes to harvesting and preserving them. Some come in easy to save pods, while others must be fished out of a fleshy fruit. I’ll give you examples of different ways to save seed and what to look for using a few plants that are currently going to seed in my garden: milkweed, cowpeas, wildflowers, basil & cucumbers.

Drying pods: Example - Milkweed & cowpeas

Most plants will first produce a flower that then becomes a pod. When these pods form, they will be thicker like skin, and still full of life and moisture. As they go past their prime for picking to eat, they will become tough.

Allow the pods to remain on the plant and dry until they are brittle, more like paper than skin. Then save the whole pod or break the pod open and store in a jar or envelope.

Others that you should allow to dry as a pod on the plant: okra, most beans, bolting brassicas (allow seed pods to form & dry), lilies

Drying florets: Example - Basil

Many herbs will produce a flowering stem with small florets. As the stem grows taller, older florets towards the bottom drop off, leaving a tiny attachment where the flower once grew. In this small attachment is the seed. At first, the stem will still be alive and green, and the seed will be white or light green and underdeveloped.

Over time, the attachment will dry out and the seed will turn brown or black, signaling time to harvest. They can be peeled back to reveal the seed or thrashed in a big pan or over newspaper to collect seed. Store in a jar or envelope.

Others that you should allow to dry on the plant: chives, sage, savory, thyme, sunflowers

Flower buds: Example - Cosmos, marigolds & more wildflowers

After your flower is done showing off, it will begin to lose petals and die back. What will remain is a dark, dried bud that may still have some lingering dried petals. Pinch what looks like the remaining dead flower and pull the contents out to reveal the seed at the base of the dead flower! Ensure that seed is completely dry before storing.

Fleshy fruit: Example - Cucumbers

Fleshy squash like cucumbers and other similar crops like melons, winter squash and eggplant can be saved in a similar fashion.

Remove or “gut” the inside of the fruit. Wash the seeds one of two ways:

1) place the fleshy seeds in a strainers & rinse well, rubbing against the mesh of the strainer to remove seeds from the gel coating then place on a paper towel to dry;

2) Place seeds in a jar full of water and shake/stir daily until the seeds sink to the bottom and gel floats atop, then strain, separate and dry!

Storing seeds:

I typically store most of my seeds in old pill bottles, mason jars, and coin envelopes. To give your seeds the best storage and protect their viability, store them in an air-tight container with a desiccant packet (save the packet from a bag of kale chips or package of grain and place this in the jar). If there is room in your fridge or freezer, they’ll do best in cold storage! Seeds can last for anywhere from 1-3 years before their germination rate slows significantly and much longer in cold storage.

Sowing Seeds:

This weekend so happens to be perfect timing to sow new seed, as we will have a new moon on Saturday. Some would call this gardening method hippy-dippy, but it’s also a scientific strategy of sowing, growing, tending and harvesting (really a combination of the two… because farming folklore intrigues me). Consider this: the moon has a gravitational pull on all bodies of water. This is not, however, limited to lakes, oceans, marshes and ponds; the moon also has a pull on subtle bodies of water, such as water in the soil. The time of the full and new moon are times of strong gravitational pull. This is also a time of higher tides, and a time when water is brought to the soil’s surface. With water more readily available, seeds can swell and grow quickly. There are more details about what crops to plant during waxing versus waning moon phases that I question, but I can get on board with the idea of sowing seeds during the time of the full and the new moon as related to increased soil moisture.

What seeds are you saving this time of year? Have any good summer garden folklore to share along with that? Comment below!

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