Hit the Dirt; Seed Saving Tips

Hello This week I'm continuing a reading from last week about seed saving in growing to seed written by Peter Donnelly and published by Ecology Action of mid Peninsula. Their address is 5 7 9 8 Ridgewood road Willits California 9 5 4 9 0. You can write to them if you want a copy of this booklet selection. The first step in selection is finding a variety that is adapted to your location and growing conditions. This may require some exploration. Seek out all the gardeners in your area. Gardeners love to share their favorites. We can also develop varieties adapted to our garden in our taste through careful selection of parent plants. Selection should begin when the plants are young. Look at the whole plant when doing this. Not just the individual fruits. Keep your eyes open for exceptional plants. Pretend you are Luther Burbank. Many new varieties began as a chance occurrence in the backyard of a perceptive gardener normal to type a typical healthy individuals are the best selection to begin with. Whoever the unusual may also be saved in a spirit of experimentation. Some element of chance and selection is another avenue to explore which often is interesting a productive result. Many people use volunteers that

spring up in the compost heap or in growing beds. These plants always seem exceptionally fit if the plant itself pollinating and has some adaptive merit. We can save it seeds and this will become a new strain that is cross pollinating it seeds may not be true. So we probably would not want to save seed but for that reason we may enjoy unique offspring from our previous year's gardens hybrids by the way can be stabilized and open pollinated varieties. It takes careful rubbing out of the unders Arbel plants. Most will be under the arable and in a handful of years of the selection. We should have a fairly predictable open pollinated Bridey cooker bits are a family to which I might want to give a space for a one year experiment. Tomatoes and some flowers are usually where the volunteers as our beans and lettuce and a number of others avoid carrots and Brassicas. Using volunteers is a good way to get a strain that is really maturing scattering seeds and encouraging volunteers when they sprout the simple way to maintain a smattering of certain annual herbs and flowers in your garden such as Cosmos steel and coriander. Recently I noticed a volunteer lettuce in a bed of clover out of curiosity and laziness. We allowed it to develop. It has grown

into a frilly end like lettuce with a wine rose color. It is unique in appearance. Very tasty and stands up well in the heat. Our market outlets will love it. There is a dynamic creativity in nature constantly generating diversity. Keep your eyes open for serendipity. Again we try to strike a balance between directing nature and just letting nature happen. Abnormal unhealthy and less vigorous individuals should be removed before flowering so as not to contribute to the new C generation. This roading is especially important for the small grower undesirable traits in the parent generation can be magnified in the following generation. It is believed by some that hybrids are less nutritious more demanding of soil resources and more vulnerable to environmental hazards. Others believe that the additional vigor uniformity and increased yields of the modern hybrids are essential for feeding the hungry world and for predictable results in your backyard. The uncontroversial advantage of the standard non-hybrid righties is that they breed true seed from F1 hybrids will not grow plants with the bigger the original hybrid. The generation that follows the F1 hybrid will be an

unpredictable mix. Most undesirable plants F1 hybrids must be labeled as such by law as a symptom of the over centralization of the trade. Many old heirloom varieties have become unavailable from commercial resources in North America as many as 5 percent of all open pollinated varieties are lost each year. Dear tongues let us refugee be howling mob sweetcorn Egyptian blood turn up and the zipper cream cowpie are but a few of the hundreds of varieties that recently become lost to the general public. Aside from the compelling names and rich histories many of these varieties have superior flavor or ability regional adaptability and other traits which make them unique and valuable to the home gardener. Only by saving your own seed can you enjoy these righties. You can become part of a growing movement to preserve this rich plant heritage by becoming a member of one of the seed saving groups which have now formed. To begin. Eventually you may want to read all the available literature on this topic. But this is not necessary to begin the next time you grow lettuce let one of your best plants continue to develop

beyond beyond eating maturity. A seed stock will grow up through the heart of the plant. Small yellow flowers small yellow flowers form than feathery stalk seeds form with mature seeds shake free readily shake the seed into a bag. This is good seed. Give some to a friend. You have more than you will need. Grow the seed next year with confidence. It's fun. Plants grown from the seed receive your special attention. You will of identity in the seed. Start with beans peas lettuce tomatoes or one of the other self pollinating varieties on one level. The instructions are as simple as let the plant grow to seed. So don't cut down those bolting lettuce plants. Save aside a nice red tomato from a particularly nice plant. Explore and have fun. In the future I hope to do a special series on saving garden seeds providing more of the specifics on different crops so if you get hooked by the challenge is and possibilities of saving seed. Keep your ears tuned to hit the dirt and let me know how experiments turn out. This is keep go far. See you next week.