Seedsaving...Correcting brooklyn1/sheldon

[Charlie]

To all those who are new to gardening, lurking, or don't realize, one doesn't need to purchase new seed every season, unless you are partial to hybridized seedstock.....contrary to what brooklyn1, the poster formerly known as sheldon, has stated in:

Message-ID:

Only those who haven't done any real gardening would >even consider picking old seed to save for next year's crop, unless they're >still in their lima bean with wet blotter mode,

Now, while the poster doesn't mention anything about hybrid seeds or heirloom seeds, he gets a bit of wiggle room here if he meant to specify hybrid crops. One needs to be very careful about reading and believing everything they see here.

Heirloom, or open-pollinated, crops are true to type and reproduce true to type, thus allowing one to save seed from year to year. If one saves seed from a hybrid crop, the next generation will produce something entirely different than it's parent.

Suzanne Ashworth's "Seed to Seed" is the seedsaver's bible, regarding seed saving techniques, crosspollination, cultivar habits and requirements, etc.

Google seed saving techniques for in depth and overviews. Google heirloom and open-pollinates and read about the historical importance of maintaining old varieties and read about the incredible flavor advantages of heirlooms.

Think about joining Seedsavers.org and helping preserve the old time lines of crops and help maintain the quickly diminishing biodiversity in the plant world. Consider satrting your own personal seedbank to preserve local and personal favorites.

Regarding flowers, Victoria can attest, I'm sure, to the fragrance differences between old varieties and modern hybrids.....rather the lack of fragrance that many of the hybrids possess.

Charlie

[Charlie]

I feel the same, but for those who are new, or want to learn something new, aren't we beholden to correct ignorance and false information when we encounter it, re: sheldon, re: things garden re:monsanto worshippers (credit to phorbin)...different perspectives are what we offer.

Charlie

[Bill]

Booklet from Johnny's $2.00 plus shipping

Bill

[Gary Woods]

Interestingly enough, that one was crossposted, and didn't make to it rec.gardens.edible, where I saw the rebuttal but not the original. I don't seem to have missed much, but I am wondering just what's wrong with the wet blotter (actually, wet paper towel) mode. How else would you know if your 10-year-old tomato seed is still good? (It is).

I haven't gardened either. For the past sixty years, give or take.

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

[Billy]

Obviously, I agree with Charlie 100% and recommend Seedsavers.org and the book Seed to Seed

isn't as easy as falling off a log however, if you wonder why we would want to keep Monsanto and their ilk from having a monopoly over the food you eat, you should also read the sites below.

also has a handy guide for saving seeds. there seems to be much wisdom in Michael Pollans book, "Omnivore's Dilemma". Factory farmed food seems to be bad for people. There are other culture that eat more meat than American's yet have none of our health problems. The answer seems to lie in what wild animals eat as opposed to what they are given to eat in Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Anecdotally, after many years of avoiding eggs and having high cholesterol, I started eating eggs from "real free range" chickens. My cholesterol has never been lower than it is now. I make no claims. I'm only telling you what I see.

Save this post, read it at your leisure, enjoy your garden and your table.

[Steve Peek]

Just a couple of points to make for seed savers:

If you are growing heirloom corn, your planting times must be at least 2 weeks apart to avoid cross pollination and polluting your genetic material. If you are growing corn in a commercial corn growing area, it's about a 99% chance that you seed will contain GM material.

You cannot save seed from squashes (they will cross) unless you beat the other pollinators and net the fruit.

Beans will cross pollinate as well, so plan to have only 1 variety blooming at a time.

Good post Charlie, I usually agree with about everything you post. I just thought this should be added.

[Charlie]

Exactly.

I pulled some 10 year old heirloom 'mater seeds out of the freezer two weeks ago, planted three seeds in each pot, ten pots of the old seeds, and had 100% germination. Now comes the hard part...the killing!

Also have white current tomatoes starting their third generation. Wonder how they will be this year. The second generation differed slightly from the first, in that they were slightly larger and less yellow cast to them. Just as sweet, though.

[Charlie]

Yer killin' me, bro! My log has gone missing....remember?

Good links.

Sometime this spring, I plan on doing a Pollan type thing in that I plan on eating, for a week, only what I grow or wild harvest. Cattail time is near as well as mushroom, fishing, etc....

Came up with a copy of Stalking the Wild Asparagus this winter.

Pollan seems to have nailed it. One might make the same assumptions about butter and dairy, let alone meat, from grass-fed cows.

It seems to be a lot about the omegas, but even more importantly, I feel, is the whole food/real food issue...also meaning that said food is grown in/on healthy soil, not dirt with NPK added.

Polyface Farms, covered by Michael, is a prime example of this...

[Charlie]

Very good points, Steve, and I'm glad you did. Oftimes I am too brief about what I post and rely upon people to research for themselves...preachin' to the choir, so to speak. Thanks for the pointer, intended or not. ;-)

As far as the corn, I have been reluctant to start on that path yet. I have about five/six pounds of different heirlooms in cold storage. We sit smack dab in the middle of Corn Central, danger zone for sure.

I guess I am saving my seed for some type of collapse scenario, with the first year going to propagate seed for the following year. At first I thought you could just plant a small amount and save seed. As it turns out, it takes quite a few plants, (recessiveness/regressiveness?? I forget without looking) and I am short on space too.

Finding open-pollinate, GM free corn seed is becoming more difficult and more expensive.

I'm telling ya', sometimes it's hard to force oneself to only plant one variety of plant per year. Been meaning to save cuke seed for five years, but every year I wind up planting several varieties....grrrrr.

Don't fade too far back, Steve.

Charlie

[Lilah Morgan]

I like Seed Savers as well...the back of the seed packet have plenty of info that I didn't know(as I said a couple weeks ago, mainly about cross-pollination dangers, which caused me to rethink my garden plots this year). This was my first year to order from them, wanted to for a while, but finally was able to do it. And man was it tough to just pick 16 seed packets out of all I wanted...the catalog pictures are so pretty(I got a friend hooked on their pictures as well...she told me she didn't know there was any kind of beet other than what was in the store, same with me and tomatoes)...but there's always next year :-)

[Gary Woods]

Unless you hand pollinate. They showed us how at the Seed Saver's convention.

And beans don't cross all that easily. Again, refer to the Holy Writ by Ms. Ashworth.

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

[Billy]

Pollan said that first we recognized the importance of protein, fats, and carbohydrates in the diet. Then we found that was to simple and added vitamins and minerals. Pollan suspects that flavonoids need to be added as well. Not to mention eating more leaves and things that eat leaves.

[Steve Peek]

I grew some Hickory King corn last year that I had stored in the freezer (I use pint canning jars & lids) for at least 10 years. The germination rate was just under 80%. I don't get a much better rate on seed bought for the current year. Steve

[Charlie]

Pishie? *Pishie*? Today I learned a new word!

Thank you.

Charlie, who just started the season's first batch of compost tea

[Billy]

Charlie, is this based on results or the conviction that it can't hurt? You know me. I'll let you go out on point, until I know it's safe ;O)

And what's with rec.gardens.organic? I've rebuilt my "full group list" and all there is is bamboo, ecosystems, orchids, roses, edible, and "wrecked gardens". I can't even post until I remove rec.gardens.organic from the newsgroups line. What gives?

[Charlie]

Well, last years stuff looked really good, especially the pots.....

What can be unsafe about compost tea? Have a little "faith", Brother William! ;-) Catdaddy cain't be wrong, dude!

Besides, it smells good, is fun to brew......and you get to wear this really cool hat and chant and dance about. Mystery and magic, bro.

Hmmm.....I'll stop that then. Your server must not carry the organic group. Sorry for the extra work and the pain-in-the-ass factor. Sorry to you others also. This may explain the lack of activity in organic.......no one is carrying it.

Later.... the sun is shinin', it's 'sposed to break the seventy barrier.....gonna get me redneck on today!!!!!

Charlie

[Gary Woods]

Billy wrote

Your news server doesn't carry it, and won't allow a post to a group it doesn't know about. The one earthlink outsources to does.

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

[Charlie]

Often one can request their news provider to add a group. I've done this with newsguy and supernews, when they were in business.

Some can be sticklers about having a control message archived and won't add a group until this is done. It's a frickin' bitch project to get it right. I couldn't get it right for one group added to supernews and had the help of several oldtimers who did it for me.

Musicheads.

It's worth a request.

Charlie

[Aluckyguess]

I bought a butternut squash from the supermarket the other day saved the seeds and planted them. They germinated fine, im curios to see what comes of them. I'm hopping no cross pollination.

[Gary Woods]

Hopefully, the farmer who grew the squash had a big field of nothing else, so the local pollen grains got there first. As others have said, the squash family are about as promiscuous as they come.

Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G