Monday, August 19, 2013

Getting Ready for Next Year's Garden!

Planning ahead can make the road seem a little smoother in a lot of ways because making the most of what we have now can help us save money in the future! For instance, saving seed from this year's garden for next. If you have grown heirloom or open pollinated vegetables or flowers, you can save the seeds and not have to buy any next year. That can save quite a bit.

Save seed from mature squash (let a summer squash mature on the vine), tomatoes, cucumbers (treat like squash), pumpkins, melons,
beans, and more. Most seed saving is just common sense. Let beans dry on the vine - that's seed. Pick a ripe tomato and put it in a dish and let Mother Nature take it's course. It will ferment and smell bad, but when it's rinsed off and dried - that's seed for next year.

Look up how to save seeds for what you grow. Some seeds must be refrigerated for a few weeks to produce the dormant stage, some can go straight from the garden to storage as long as they're dry.

Why buy seed next year when you already have it for free this year?

Image courtesy of morguefile.com