The Everything Guide to Living Off the Grid (18 page)

CHAPTER 11
Saving Seeds

Marc Rogers, in his book
Saving Seeds: The Gardener’s Guide to Growing and Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds
, wrote this: “A seed is much, much more than it appears to be. The hard, dry, distinctively shaped particles that we plant in our gardens are really dormant embryos—tiny, already formed plants encased in a protective coating. While we may think of seeds as a beginning, they are really links between generations of plants, vehicles of both the survival of the planet species and the spread of new life.”

Why Save Seeds

When you look at a seed, especially an heirloom seed, you see more than the potential for a tomato plant or a head of lettuce. Rather, you can see generations of farmers cultivating, planting, and selecting the best of the yield—not to eat, but to save in order to harvest the seeds for the following year.

Seeds were so important to our ancestors that at weddings, both the bride’s and the groom’s families would present the newlywed couple with a gift of some of their own family’s seeds.

When immigrants set out to the New World and were limited in the things they could bring across the ocean, they often smuggled seeds with them, not only as a means to begin a new life, but also as a way to connect back to the old one.

If not for generations of seed savers, we would not have the variety of seeds available to us today. And, if not for dedicated seed savers today, many of the wonderful and unique heirloom plants would have become lost forever.

In most cases, you can save seeds from plants classified as annual (those whose life cycle lasts only one year) and biennial (plants whose life cycle lasts two years). The seeds you save from your garden have already become accustomed to your climate, your soil, and even the insects in your area.

Saving garden seeds at the end of each growing season can be a great cost-saving measure. It also assures you that the delicious tomatoes you loved from your garden, or the beans that produced so well, will still be around next year.

The Difference Between Hybrid and Heirloom Seeds

When you purchase heirloom seed, you are getting seed produced from plants that have been saved and grown fifty years or more, their seed passed down from generation to generation.

Hybrid seeds are created by plant breeders. These plant breeders select two similar plant varieties and crossbreed them to create a new plant variety that features traits from the two parent plants. For example, a plant breeder might select one plant that is frost resistant, and another that has a sweeter taste. The new plant—the offspring of the two varieties—is now a unique hybrid variety that is both frost resistant and has a sweeter flavor.

An heirloom is open-pollinated, which simply means the plant is capable of producing seeds that will grow a new plant identical to the parent plant the seed came from.

Hybrid seeds are not bad in any way. They have helped increase crop yield and made it easier for many gardeners to be successful. However, hybrid seeds are not open-pollinated. If you save their seeds, the forthcoming plant will not be identical to the parent plant. It might not be sweeter or frost resistant. Many hybrid seeds can be sterile and will not germinate. In order to have the same success you had with the initial offspring, you have to buy your seeds from the plant breeder again.

The beauty of an heirloom seed is the ability of the plant to change on its own. When you save heirloom seeds you select the one that ripened the fastest, was frost resistant, or was sweetest, and save its seeds. So, in time, the seed works through the same process as the hybrid, but it’s a natural process. The offspring of that open-pollinated seed will produce the same results, or better, over and over again.

Collecting Seeds

As you work in your garden, you need to watch and see which of your plants you want to choose for seed saving. Once you choose the plant, you should do something to identify it, so you don’t accidentally harvest it. Whether you decide to place a certain-colored stake next to it, or tie a piece of ribbon around its stem, be sure you share your plan with the other members of your family.

You want to pick the vegetable or fruit at the peak of maturity, so your seed has the best chance of reproducing. There are three basic types of seed-bearing garden plants: fleshy fruits, seed crops, and those that scatter their seeds. When collecting the seeds for fleshy plants, like tomatoes and peppers, you should allow the fruits to ripen, or even overripen slightly, before you collect the seed. But you don’t want the fruit to blemish, mold, or shrivel around the seeds. You are still looking for a healthy parent plant.

In nature, the vegetables and fruit we eat are, in reality, merely the food supply for the seeds inside. As the plant matures, the seeds inside become stronger and ready to survive on their own.

When you collect from the seed crops, like corn, wheat, and beans, you want the plant to mature. These seeds will not deteriorate or blow away if the crop is left on the stalk or vine, as long as they remain dry.

Lettuce, onions, and broccoli are part of the group that scatters seeds. To be sure you capture the seeds from these plants, you can either watch them every day, collecting small amounts as they become available, or fashion a bag made of cheesecloth around the seed head to capture the seeds as they mature.

Extracting and Drying Seeds

When you extract the seeds from seed-containing fleshy fruits, you need to separate the seed from the pulp. If you’ve ever carved a pumpkin and cleaned it out, you will understand the process exactly. Once you’ve separated the seeds, wash them thoroughly and spread them out to dry. Large seeds can take up to a week to dry, smaller seeds half of that.

The best way for you to separate tomato seeds is to ferment them. The easiest way to do this is to slice open the tomato and squeeze the contents into a glass jar. Then you can add water to about halfway up the jar, stir, and set aside for a few days. A moldy residue will collect on the top of the
water, as well as some tomato seeds. The tomato seeds that float to the top are worthless seeds. After about four days the water will clear and the good seeds will sink to the bottom of the jar. Discard the bad seeds and tomato pulp and place the good seeds on a paper towel to dry. Once dried, they can be removed from the paper and stored.

To extract the seed crop seeds, wait until the plants are fully dried and then twist them or pull their stalks through your hands to separate the kernels. Make sure they are dried and then store them.

The seeds you collected from the group that scatters seeds can be shaken through a hardware screen to ensure that pieces of chaff are not stored with them, and then dried and stored. Be sure to give your seeds a long enough drying period. Storing seeds with a high moisture content will cause them to germinate poorly the following year.

Storing Seeds

You should store seeds in conditions that are cool, dark, and dry. Temperature fluctuations, especially heat, and humidity are seeds’ worst enemies. Seeds do best at a moisture content of about 8 percent.

One way for you to ensure moisture content is to use a desiccant (a product used to remove excessive humidity) .ith your seed packets and seal them together in an airtight jar. A standard canning jar and lid, along with some silica gel, will do the trick. Add the silica gel to the jar; add the seeds, still in their packets, to the jars, and seal. Small seeds will dry down to 8–10 percent moisture overnight, while large seeds may take several days. Seal the dried seeds in a new, dry jar and label it clearly. Then place it in a dark, cool place. You can even store seeds in your refrigerator or freezer.

Testing Seeds

After you’ve done all you can to identify, collect, extract, and store, you will want to be sure your seeds are viable for the next season before you plant them in the ground. The sure measure of success is a germination test. This test can be performed at the start of the regular growing season, so you don’t waste your time and your land on seeds that are unprofitable.

A good germination test will provide the seeds with model conditions of moisture, air, temperature, and light.

Select ten or more seeds from the group to be checked. Spread out the seeds on a damp paper towel. Roll up the paper towel, thoroughly moisten it, and seal it in a polyethylene bag (like a Ziploc bag). Be sure to label the outside of the bag with the seed type. The inside of the bag should be moist, but not wet. Place the bag in a warm area (about 70°F).

Occasionally check the bag to ensure that the towel remains damp. Judge the germination test by the guidelines generally acceptable for the particular seed tested. If most of the seeds germinated in the time suggested, your seeds are worth planting. You can judge how thickly you should plant your seeds by the percentage of seed that germinated during the test.

CHAPTER 12
The Buzz about Beekeeping

People have been keeping bees for over 150 years. Bees are an essential part of agriculture, necessary for pollinating plants to ensure a better fruit set and bigger crops. Poorly pollinated plants produce fewer, often misshapen, fruits and lower yields of seed with inevitable consequences upon quality, availability, and price of food. One of the few farm activities that can actually increase yields, rather than simply protect existing yields from losses, is managing bees to encourage good pollination.

Is Your Location Right for Bees?

Honeybees can be kept almost anywhere there are flowering plants that produce nectar and pollen. Choose a site for beehives that is discrete, sheltered from winds, and partially shaded. Avoid low spots in a yard where cold, damp air accumulates in winter.

Bees pollinate about one-sixth of the world’s flowering plant species and some 400 of its agricultural plants.

The best beehive location is one where your best source of pollen and nectar is within two square miles of your hive, the closer the better. Because bees actually use pollen and nectar to produce their own energy, the farther they have to travel for it, the more they have to consume themselves. In contrast, if you can place them closer to their food source, you can collect more honey.