How to Save Your Seeds

I think the practice of saving seeds is due for a revival. Seed saving is rewarding in so many ways. It’s very easy. Basics What you basically do when you save seeds is this: you go to the seeds when they are ready and get them; you make sure they’re really dry, and then you store them. It’s as simple as that but … Getting good seeds at the right time involves knowing the usual life cycle of a plant and whether a seed will stay true. You can gather them in different ways such as plucking, rubbing, shaking or grabbing. Making sure seeds are dry enough means having a good drying space for them. Storing seeds well involves having appropriate labels and containers for them. Plant Types and Specifics Plants are annual, biennial or perennial. ~Annual plants (such as lettuce and tomatoes) flower and mature seed in the same year. ~Biennial plants (such as carrots and beets) are normally harvested as food in their first summer or fall but do not flower or produce seed until the next year. Lettuce Whew. Related: Seeds and Seedlings

Shallots, Lemon grass and Apple plants from seeds Great video from My inspired creation. She has bought shallots,lemongrass and saved some seeds from store bought red delicious apples and has now got all of them to root. Then she can transplant to the garden and grow her own . Pretty neat. photo credit My inspired creation Survival Garden Seeds The Garden Can The Preparedness Seeds Garden Vegetable Can provides a Missing link in your food storage plan. Each #10 can contains 16 popular varieties that will plant nearly 3/4 acre of garden! These Seeds are Non-Hybrid, Non-GMO and are not chemically treated. Because they are non-hybrid, seeds may be harvested at the end of the growing season and then used for the next year’s planting. 16 large seed packets sealed in a #10 can. *Varieties Included: SWEET CORN, Golden Bantam 5oz ONION, Utah Sweet Spanish 10g SPINACH, Bloomsdale Long Standing 10g WINTER SQUASH, Waltham Butternut 10g SQUASH ZUCCHINI, Black Beauty 10g RADISH, Champion 10g TOMATO, Rutgers 5g SWISS CHARD, Lucullus 10g PEA, Lincoln 10oz BEET, Detroit Dark Red 10g CABBAGE, Golden Acre 10g LETTUCE, Paris Island Cos 5g CUCUMBER, Marketmore 76 10g CARROT, Scarlet Nantes 10g PEPPER, Yolo Wonder 5g BUSH BEAN, Spike 5oz*Important – Because of the shortage of Non-Hybrid seed, substitutions may occur!

The best way to sprout strawberry seeds / growing strawberries Neat way to grow strawberry plants from the seeds on the berries you buy from the store. Fragile come unarose shows how to take seeds from your strawberries that you are eating and sprout them and then transplant the little seedlings into a container till the are ready to go in to the garden. I like it, you won’t have to buy seed or starter plants again. photo credit Fragilecomeunarose

Great Vegetable Seeds from The Real Seed Catalogue How to start plants from seed indoors to transplant in the garden later Andrea Levy, The PD With visions of plump, juicy tomatoes, crisp cauliflower and sunny marigolds dancing in their heads, some gardeners spend late winter sowing seeds indoors and pampering their emerging beauties until it's warm enough to move them outdoors. These indoor gardeners like to get growing early for several reasons. One, a packet of a dozen or so seeds, which costs a few dollars, is a fraction of what ready-to-plant botanicals cost. "It's cheaper than buying flowering plants and vegetable starts," says Christine Harris, an Ohio State University Extension Cuyahoga County master gardener, who won the statewide award of volunteer of the year at the International Master Gardener Conference in Charleston, W.V., last year. "Costs for these have skyrocketed due to fuel costs in greenhouses and for transportation." Harris, who has been starting seeds indoors for about 13 years, says she has discovered a lot of vegetables and flowers that are not available at local greenhouses. Materials

Off Grid Info - Food Independence - Where To Get Heirloom Seeds - Non-GMO Seeds - Organic Seeds Join 75,000+ Fans on Facebook: Follow Us On Pinterest: Please Share This Page: Here is a useful list of 40+ 230+ companies supplying heirloom / non-GMO / organic seeds. **UPDATE** This page has proven to be massively popular...! , we are gathering them up and will add them to this page as soon as we can. Please Like Off-Grid On Facebook to stay in touch and receive our latest posts! USA (states in alphabetical order) EUROPE (except UK & Ireland) South Africa All inquiries - please contact: Privacy Policy | About

Native Seeds/SEARCH - The Story of Glass Gem Corn: Beauty, History, and Hope If you’ve spent any time online recently, you might have noticed a striking photo making its rounds. Feast your eyes on Glass Gem corn: a stunning, multi-colored heirloom that has taken Facebook and the blogosphere by storm. With its opalescent kernels glimmering like rare jewels, it’s easy to see what the buzz is about. This is some truly mind-blowing maize. For the staff here at Native Seeds/SEARCH, the viral explosion of interest in Glass Gem has been thrilling—but not surprising. Like many heirloom treasures, Glass Gem corn has a name, a place, and a story. Approaching old age, Barnes bestowed his precious seed collection to Greg Schoen, his corn-breeding protégé. The story of Barnes, Schoen, and their remarkable corn is not unusual. The bounty of genetic diversity our ancestral farmers and gardeners created in this way was shared and handed down across generations. Though much of this diversity may be gone, all hope is not lost. To Purchase Glass Gem Seed:

Plant Breeders Release First 'Open Source Seeds' : The Salt hide captionBackers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including broccoli, carrots and kale, on Thursday. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Backers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including broccoli, carrots and kale, on Thursday. A group of scientists and food activists is launching a campaign Thursday to change the rules that govern seeds. It's inspired by the example of open source software, which is freely available for anyone to use but cannot legally be converted into anyone's proprietary product. At an event on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, backers of the new Open Source Seed Initiative will pass out 29 new varieties of 14 different crops, including carrots, kale, broccoli and quinoa. Irwin Goldman, a vegetable breeder at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, helped organize the campaign. These days, seeds are intellectual property.