The Seed Garden is a big, beautiful book. With nearly 400 large pages, the softcover actually weighs more than three pounds. Much of the book features gorgeous photos — amazing close-ups of blossoms and seeds. The Seed Garden may serve as a coffee table book, but is an excellent reference guide for seed savers.
How to Save Your Own Seeds is aimed at Canadian growers and discusses issues such as saving seed in short seasons and overwintering biennials in cold climates.
The book is produced by Seeds Savers Exchange (SSE), an American non-profit organization which promotes global seed saving and sharing. In 1991, SSE produced Suzanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed. The Seed Garden covers much the same material but with more detail and current information.
The basic principles of seed saving are well explained in chapters on pollination, harvesting and cleaning seed, storage of seed and planning the seed garden. The bulk of the book contains profiles of 75 species with specific details on isolation distances, type of pollination and when and how to harvest seed. Far more than 75 crops are covered because one species may produce several crops. For example, celery and celeriac are just different cultivars of the same species. Likewise, beets and chard are the same species. When it comes to brassicas, things get confusing. One species includes broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi and European kale, and another includes rutabaga and Russian/Siberian kale.
The book focuses on vegetables but a few grains and pseudo-grains (amaranth and quinoa) are covered, along with some information on saving seed from ornamental flowers.
Overall, the book is a great resource. I was, however, often frustrated that the authors stopped short of advice for more advanced seed saving. For many crops that cross-pollinate, for example, the writers simply recommend that seed savers grow just one variety per year rather than deal with isolation. I would have also liked more information on equipment for small to intermediate-sized seed saving operations. That said, I appreciated the Master Class tutorials which describe a few advanced methods, such as hand-pollination of corn and vernalizing biennials in storage (i.e. making crops ‘feel’ like they’ve gone through a winter).
Seed saving tips
- Use coffee filters when drying small quantities of wet-processed seeds (tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, etc.). The filters wick away water but don’t stick to seeds. And you can write the variety on the filter.
- As an alternative to winnowing round seeds (e.g. Brassicas), let the seeds roll down an inclined plane covered with felt or rough material. The seeds will collect in a container at the bottom and the chaff will stick to the material.
- Thresh tough seeds (e.g. beets, spinach, kale, radish) by driving a truck over them. There are lots of cautionary tips for this, but I can see it as a last resort.
- Dry seed with rice. Dehydrate rice by baking it in canning jars (open in the oven, sealed right after baking). The rice will absorb moisture from seeds that aren’t completely dry.
REVIEW: Seed saving for the small producer
How to Save Your Own Seeds: a handbook for small-scale seed production. 6th Edition. Seeds of Diversity Canada. 2013. 68 pp.
The Canadian equivalent to Seeds Savers Exchange is Seeds of Diversity Canada. The charitable organization helps “preserve the biodiversity in our food.” Like SSE, Seeds of Diversity has a large living seed library in which members across the country save and share seed.
Seeds of Diversity’s How to Save Your Own Seeds is, well, not a poor cousin, but a streamlined version of The Seed Garden. In just 68 pages, it covers much of the material in The Seed Garden — certainly all the basic information but also valuable details about saving seed both for home and commercial use. There are few pictures but the writing is excellent. Using simple terms and diagrams, the writers provide beginning and experienced seed savers with much of what they need to know about planning a seed garden, plant reproduction and techniques for saving and storing seed.
The book focuses exclusively on saving seeds from vegetables and covers the use of basic tools from sieves and hardware cloth to paper bags. The book is aimed at Canadian growers and discusses issues such as saving seed in short seasons and overwintering biennials in cold climates.
If you’re on a budget, this is the book to get. Whereas The Seed Garden has a list price of $44.95, How to Save Your Own Seeds is sold for $15 including shipping and without additional tax. It’s not sold at bookstores but available online at www.seeds.ca or by mail (Seeds of Diversity, 40 King St S, Unit 303, Waterloo, ON N2J 1N8).
Points of interest:
- Flavour is an important factor to consider when selecting which individual plants to save for seed. But how can you do that when you need to replant a biennial in the spring? Seeds of Diversity Canada recommends cutting off the tips of carrots, parsnips and root parsley or cutting a slice off the side of a beet for taste tests. Let the cut area cure for a few days before planting.
- Squash bees are largely responsible for pollinating squash flowers and they do this early in the morning. The male bees often take a siesta later, actually napping inside the squash flowers in the afternoon while female bees go underground by noon to feed pollen to their larvae. The authors question how to manage tillage to avoid disrupting this invaluable groundnesting pollinator.
Seeds are best stored in glass (or in paper bags/envelopes) inside of glass jars because moisture cannot penetrate glass. Plastic, on the other hand, has microscopic pores larger than water molecules.
- Janet Wallace