Saving seeds from your vegie garden

Seed saving is often seen as an optional extra for gardeners who have larger gardens (it takes up precious garden space) and more time on their hands (it takes up precious time). But I reckon it’s something that most, and perhaps all, gardeners should make an effort to do at least a little bit of.

Is it worth saving seeds?

Crop diversity is a key ingredient to ensuring we have a viable food culture that can feed the world in the face of the climate emergency. When seed saving, it’s super important to make space for growing heirloom seeds. These have been selected by growers over many generations (before modern agriculture) for their genetic strengths suited to that particular climate and region. These seeds are more resilient to extreme climate variabilities, including heat, pests, drought, diseases and salinity. They also have favourable traits including being fast-growing, high-yielding and darn tasty and nutritious – all necessary to combat food insecurity. By contrast, hybrid seeds – while perfectly good to grow and eat – don’t produce reliable seeds, so are pretty much useless when it comes to seed saving.

When we make the time and space to grow and save some seed from our edible crops, we’re shaping a food system that guarantees a healthy future for generations to come.

So remember, when you save seed, you’re also saving the integrity of our food system (socially and environmentally), which has always belonged to the people – let’s make sure it stays that way.

How to save seeds

Wondering how to save seed? Well, seed saving can be broadly categorised into two different types – dry and wet.

DRY SEED SAVING

1. ALLOW your plant to die back while it’s still in the garden. This will give the seeds maximum time on the plant to mature and fully dry out. Then pick a whole branch of seeds on a dry day, and place the end of the branch in a paper bag (or equivalent).
2. BASH the bag against your hand to loosen the seeds, then pour the seedy mix into a bowl. You’ll most likely have lots of seed husks in there as well.
3. WINNOW the seed from bowl to bowl if there’s a breeze. If not, follow next step.
4. GRAB a handful of seed and gently blow over your hand to imitate a breeze. About 90 per cent of what comes off will be the husk, leaving you with clean seeds.
5. POUR the seeds into a paper bag and place in a glass jar, clearly labelled with the plant’s name and the date of harvest. Store the jar in a cool, dark place.

WET SEED SAVING

1. SCOOP the fleshy seeds out of the fruit. You can do this with pumpkin, zucchini, tomato or eggplant (technically a fruit as the seeds are on the inside).
2. POP the seeds into a bowl of water and give them a good wash to clean off most of their fleshy coating.
3. PLACE the seeds on a paper towel to dry overnight. Remove from the towel and store in a paper bag (or folded sheet of paper) to absorb any extra moisture. Put the paper bag in a glass jar, labelled with the plant’s name and date of harvest. Store seeds in a cool, dark place.

Want to learn how to preserve your tomatoes? Read this article now.

Header image credit: Natalie Mendham