What’s in the ground:

This is the point in the season when you’re summer crops are beginning to die down and your fall crops have taken root. But before you go ripping out those summer crops, please, save your seed first. For tomatoes and peppers, it’s simple. If you are preparing a meal and you see a tomato that is perfectly red and round, or a pepper that is so sweet and hearty you’ll have dreams about it, separate the seed. For a pepper it’s a little easier, you just shake them out. For a tomato, you first have to scoop out the goo. I usually put the goo on a paper towel and then I use my pinky to slide the seeds out, leaving the goo behind. Some people like to toast the seeds with the goo to get rid of the water. But I never get the timing right and sometimes crisp them, which isn’t good for the seed.

Once the seed is separated, I let them dry out in the open for about 3 hours on a napkin. You can let them dry for as long as you want, but in my hectic house, I like to get them into a container as soon as possible (after 3 hours). I usually like to use tin containers rather than plastic since plastic can keep in moisture. I’ll then leave these seeds for a few days until I think they are nice and dry and then I put them into brown, paper packets, label them and put them on the shelf. The same can be done for gourds and curcubits.

If you are trying to save seeds from leafy greens or herbs, you need to let the plant go to seed. You’ll notice the bitter flavors and the tall stalk of flowers from the center growth point. Once you see this stalk, again take the best producing and tasting plant, pull it from the ground, and then string it up in a cool, dry place. Once it dries, you can shake the seed from the dead flowers. Some people like to let the plant die and brown in the ground, but I don’t do this. Because you can risk the seed dropping and then volunteering all over your garden next year. The only plant I let die and brown in the garden is beans, because they are easily managed. The dried beans or peas in the pod can then be planted next year.

What’s going on at the homestead:

For this installment I wanted to talk about an extremely big and historic project that took place at the homestead over the weekend. However, it’s not completely finished yet. So, much to Rob Berliner’s chagrin, I’m going to hold off on this story until the next installment, and I’ll keep you all in suspense.

But it’s all for the best because today’s topic is seed saving, which is a little time sensitive at this point in the season. To give a little background, seed saving is one of the most lost, and threatened arts in modern agriculture. With the advent of industrial seed companies, it is far too easy to go to the store and buy all of the seeds that you would need for your garden. And there are many great places to get seeds. Places like High Mowing Seeds and Seeds of Change are great companies from Vermont and New Mexico that do really good, organic work. Then you have places like Landreth Seed Company in Central PA that is threatened with closing down this year if they can’t turn a profit, so you should support them. And also, being so close to Chester County, we have the privilege of Happy Cat Organics run by Mr. Tim Mountz who does amazing things with heirlooms.

So please support these great companies with your business. But monetary support is not always enough. My intention with this article is to get you all to support them with your minds. Because the more mindlessly we all go about our seeds, the more it opens up the door for companies like Monsanto and other industrial seed companies to play on people’s ignorance and monopolize the seed market with their biologically bland hybrids and the even more dangerous Genetically Modified seed. As I said, we have lost those beautiful arts of seed selection, cross pollinating and plant breeding. But if that is not compelling enough to make you save seed, here are a few reasons why you should save seed.

The first is the obvious. When you save seed, you save money. It may not seem like a lot if you have a small garden, but you’ll notice the difference when you start saving. The second reason is that you don’t know what the plant looked like that lead to the pack of seeds you bought. A good company probably saved seed from a really nice plant. But when you do it yourself, you can pick the most delicious, most perfectly shaped, and most hearty of your crop.

And for the third reason, I understand that this blog may risk the accusation of preaching to the chior. But my purpose is to give you all the ideas that you can take back and showcase to your communities. So please, take the techniques I gave you in this installment, and start to save your seed. Myabe go back and start a seed saving club and exchange with your fellow gardeners and farmers. This may even lead to a bigger seed bank. But I can definitely guarantee that it will lead to more consciousness and better farming in your area.

So go forth, spread the seeds of your knowledge and your plants. The earth will surely thank you. Until next time, this is the note from the Urban Homestead.

-Nic