Heirloom seeds- The lost art of saving seeds

If you have a garden you should be thinking about saving the seeds found within it.

My Seed Box

I’ve had a garden since 2005 now and have been savings seeds every since. It’s not just the idea of saving some money so you won’t buy seeds the next year, though that’s a good idea to begin with it’s the act of  being able to save a heritage and future generations of seeds.

Right off the bat I will tell you this, look at the seeds you have. If they are not heirloom, chances are they are modified and hybrid. What does that mean? Simple, the seed has been changed genetically. Most I see on the shelf today say something like “disease resistant ” or “resistant to pests”.
Here’s the thing-
 Plants get bugs, disease happens in plants, just as it does humans. That’s life, there are ways to fight  pests in the garden without damaging the crop. You do not need a plant that was bred to kill off a bug. If the plant is doing that, what will it do to YOU? Think about it.
Not only that but hybrid plants won’t give you viable seeds which I have mentioned before. Most hybrids are cross pollinated in a lab, or use splicing and other ways to create some sort of massive plant to give people what they want, yet in turn that massive plant will most likely be sterile so seeds won’t be viable from it. Even if they are, it will not be the same plant, which brings me to the heirlooms.

Chives about to go to seed

 Heirlooms are seeds that have been collected for generations and passed down to generations. These are open pollinated by nature, viable and strong plants. These seeds are pure, as well as a perfect match of their parent plants. While a hybrid seed isn’t the same as it’s parent . The seed from a hybrid will already be smaller than it’s parents, it looses it’s strength and viability quickly while a heirloom is a pure offspring with it’s same strain of it’s parents. It will produce the same, and give you the same viable seeds for next year  , as well as the next year and so on. Hybirds will not. You have to keep buying hybrid seeds because they do not give you viable seeds! Plants are meant to make seeds, if it isn’t giving you seeds to replant what good is it?

Red Scarlet Bean Seeds

I cannot stress this enough, buy heirloom seeds, start collecting them yourself. Seed collecting is such a lost art in today’s world.

 If we don’t save our past, what will make up our future?