Saving Seeds
To Preserve Food Security
As we all saw in 2020, food security all starts with a seed.
When push came to shove, the first thing people bought for their gardens-or attempted to- was the humble seed. But a rush in orders made getting the seeds that were still available- a long wait.
Saving seed from store bought food.
A lot of bloggers ran-a-muck suggesting people to save seed from store
bought food. As that is a good last resort, I saw a lot of bad information on how
that was possible. First of all, most store bought food is hybridized, the varieties
won't grow true to type, and you don't know weather it crossed with something
else on top of that, making it an inedible fruit at the end of a long, desperate season.
Not a great way to spend your time.
Second, you can't save peas from fresh pods, or pepper seeds from an unripe
green pepper. They won't grow. Peas need to dry on the vine fully, and so do
peppers. Once they are shriveled they're going to give great seeds.
Start from Heirloom Varieties.
Start with something easy, like peppers. Peppers do not need to be fermented , like tomato seeds, you just let them dry on the vine. Just make sure you wear gloves for hot peppers, as the oils are still able to burn you if you don't. But only grow one type of pepper, as they cross easy; It's hard to imagine but you can get some pretty gross or cool crosses. So if you want that same pepper, keep it clean, by 300-1600 feet. If that seems impossible you can hand pollinate peppers by placing a mesh bag over the plant that protects the flower from bees. Just use an electric toothbrush to gently knock pollen onto your paintbrush and gently pollinate the other flowers. Long term you'll need to cross many plants to keep the genetics alive, but for a season or two- just two plants could do.
Replenish your seed source once you run out of that first season's seeds, so you don't start getting odd fruit.
Enjoy your garden!
