Vermont Food & Wine

Vermont Food & Wine

“The garden seeds being dropped from the catalogs are the very best vegetable varieties we will ever see.”  —Kent Whealy, Seed Savers Exchange

Seed-saving and crop improvement has been the right and responsibility of farmers since the dawn of agriculture. Although today there is more awareness of heritage food crops, such as the beloved Brandywine tomato, most of us have forgotten the farmers’ art of seed saving and how to select seeds best adapted to our farms and gardens.

Why not start a seed circle this year? Get together with a few friends or neighbors and each plan to save one or two kinds of seeds. After the growing season you can gather for a harvest potluck and share all the seeds you’ve saved. You only need to save seed for the one or two plants that you care about, but in the end you’ll have five, 10 or more different kinds of seeds for the following season. And you’ll be growing the most delicious and nutritious fruits and vegetables.

What you need to know: Non-hybrid varieties (also called open-pollinated or Heirloom) will breed true and produce plants just like the parent-plants. Hybrids are seeds of parents with different qualities. Plants grown from hybrid seeds typically do not produce seeds that can be used to grow the same type of plants, and can even produce seeds that will not grow at all.   —Courtesy of Post Oil Solutions

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