If you garden and you're frugal, surely you've saved at least a few varieties of seeds from year to year. If you haven't, you're wasting money. The seed companies get theirs the exact same way you can get yours, so why pay them to do it?
I keep reading that hybrids won't breed true if you save the seeds from your own crops and that's true of some things, but not all. I have saved seed from hybrid lettuce, radishes and acorn squash, among other things, and they grew true to themselves the next year. It's worth a try, especially if you come across something you really like, or something that grows very well in your garden.
Heirlooms are best for seed saving, though. Think of it this way. Every time you toss out the seeds from an heirloom tomato or a summer squash, you're throwing away a perfectly good package of seeds or in most cases, several packages of seeds.
Nature is extremely generous when it comes to making seed and she will give them to you for free. Why buy them next year?
Your so right Pat. I have been enjoying lovely apples, of all sorts. I don't know the names of them all, but the birds that must have planted them didn't know the names either. However, we have lovely apples for eating, apples sauce, and some cut up for muffins all free, from trees that grew with no gardener looking after them. I have had lots of volunteer plants that have self seeded from the year before. Even when I used to be far more careful and tidy in my garden. Now I look each spring to see what lovely surprises are growing. If they are in a good spot I plant around them, if not I transplant them. Free plants are great!
ReplyDeleteKootenay Annie
I have a very small garden and I have saved seeds from year to year. They always seem to sprout but never as many as the year before. But, it's def better than wasting them.
ReplyDeleteVolunteer plants always seem so healthy, too, don't they?? But I save seeds and plant them in the spring so I'll know what I have, too.
ReplyDeleteThe day after I read this blog, we had our first frost. I was out checking my baby white cucumbers (so tasty!) and stumbled across two very large cukes I had missed. My next thoughts were, hey seeds! and Pat's blog. Thanks Pat :)
ReplyDeleteSusan
Good timing, Susan! :)
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