Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a workshop on planning for the seed-saving garden, which was put on as part of an initiative to start a community seed bank here in Prince George. The workshop was led by Yvonna Breed, a local organic grower with many years of experience and lots of great advice for those just starting out like me. Here are a few of the more memorable tips:
- Start with feeding your soil. Healthy soil creates healthy plants, and healthy plants will produce strong, healthy seeds.
- Grow what you want to eat!
- Keep records in order to remember what works and what doesn't. Some important things to note include dates of planting, transplanting, and harvesting, and yields.
- A quick and easy test for pH: wet your soil and add a small amount of baking soda. If it fizzes, it means your soil is acidic (which most plants generally don't like). Alternatively, add a small amount of apple cider vinegar - if it fizzes, then your soil is alkaline.
- Never plant out all your saved seed - leave some for next year just in case.
- Just get out there and grow! You will learn from your mistakes.
I also was able to "adopt" some seeds, making our garden a part of a network of living seed banks in the community. The idea is that I grow out the seeds, and then bring at least double the amount of seeds back after my harvest. I only picked two things as I already have a ton of seeds that I am planning on growing (and hopefully saving) this year, and limited growing space/time to create more growing space. The seeds I picked were Witkiem - a type of broad bean, and an early French orange cantaloupe. I don't really have much rationale for picking those seeds in particular other than that I thought the beans looked cool and I really like cantaloupe.
Saving seeds is an important activity, because it lowers our dependence on a small handful of seed breeders. The more people that save seeds each year, the more resilient the food supply is to massive crop failure and other disasters. Since the closest seed breeders to Prince George are about 700 km away, our growers are at pretty high risk from being cut-off from their seed supply.
The best types of seeds to save are rare heirloom varieties, especially ones that are adapted your climate or growing conditions. Look for "open-pollinated" varieties. Don't bother saving seeds from hybrid plants, as they won't grow into the same variety as their parents, and some hybrids won't produce viable seeds at all.
One of the most important notes about saving seeds is to be very careful of cross-pollination. Different varieties of the same species, and sometimes even different species from the same plant family can cross with each other. In order to prevent getting weird hybrid seeds, plants grown from seed should be isolated by distance, time, or a physical barrier like a screen box. So using my cantaloupe as an example, I shouldn't try to grow any other types of melons nearby, if I want to make sure that the seeds that I get are the same variety as the original.
Resources:
"How to Save Your Own Seeds" from Seeds of Diversity, which includes detailed instructions for saving seeds and preventing cross-pollination for a variety of garden vegetables. Seeds of Diversity is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to preserving biodiversity of food crops, so it's good to support them.
"Seed to Seed" by Suzanne Ashworth, is the one I have at home, and have so far found it to be pretty informative.
ps. Click here if you are interested in becoming a seedster in the Prince George area or just want to know more about the community seed bank
No comments:
Post a Comment