zinnia seeds

As winter is rapidly drawing near, I am busy collecting seeds.  I am relatively new to seed saving since it has always seemed to be such a dauting task.  But once I took a step back and realized that nature has been rebirthing itself season after season without man, I decided that all the “necessary” steps and procedures were really not all that necessary after all.  But making the move to preserving our own seeds each year is something I definitely want to do, not just for financial reasons, but also because I worry that giant companies, like Monsanto, are working towards total domination of the seed market.

My main focus this year was on flower seeds.  Flower seeds like poppies, cosmos and zinnias are very easy to collect.  I just wait for the head of the flower to dry up and pull the seeds right off.  DONE!  Although, this year, tons of cosmos came up and I never even collected seeds.  Self seeders are definitely keepers in my garden.

poppy seeds

I would like to start collecting seeds from vegetables, but that is more of a challenge due to cross pollination.  It’s difficult in our gardens to separate pepper and tomato varieties so far away from each other so they will not cross pollinate.   As an experiment, I collected some of the seeds anyway to see what happens.  I am quickly learning that the books are not always right, and usually the best way to learn about something is to just do it.

~Kelly