Collecting Seeds

Harvesting seeds from the garden is a wonderful age honoured tradition for creating heirloom varieties of plants that have the characteristics of optimal and resilient growth within the context of your garden and great flavours (largely dependent upon soil quality). It also represent a very economical way to produce your crops and open up opportunities to build connections with other growers in your area to swap seed stock.

The following is an outline of the the main considerations with collecting seeds and these are elaborated in more detail in the associated video resources and readings.

• Finely sift your compost to create a nice seed raising mix
• Have a warm , dark and moist area set up to germinate the seeds.
• Have a glasshouse or other sheltered, warm and light are to grow seedlings to a transplantable size (make sure they are well watered in a free draining soil medium (for example a mix of compost and sand or fine pumice).
• Transfer seedling to a shade house until ready to plant.
• When planting ensure they are well watered until they becomes established.
• Observe for plants that are most vigourously growing, produce a good yields and are resistant to pest.
• Ensure you allow those plants to reach maturity and produce seed.
• Collect the seeds form these plants.
• Collect the seeds and remove debris (you can use washing and floating to remove heavy seeds from fruit pulp or winnowing to remove from husks).
• Allow seeds to dry thoroughly.
• Store seeds in a porous paper (labelled) bag - those brown manilla envelopes are good, in a cool dry area.