Why Should I Save Seeds? 11 Reasons To Add Seed Saving To Your Bucket List
Can you guess why #10 and 11 are my favorites?
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Pretty much every vegetable and flower you grow in the garden, with a few exceptions, start out as seeds. Before the dawn of the internet shopping, my favorite winter pastime was to sit down with the seed catalogues when they arrived in the mail in December and pour over page after page of beautiful plant pictures trying to decide what to buy.
Once upon a time, those seed catalogues held the promise of a bountiful and affordable garden. Even the smallest sized seed packet held plenty of seed, often enough for more than one growing year.
Somewhere along the way, all of that changed. Seed packets started getting more and more expensive. Long-standing favorite varieties (often called heirloom plants) became a lot harder to find.
And then, not only were the prices still going up, but the amount of seeds radically dropped. It is now common to pay over $5 for just 10 tomato seeds. If you have a big garden or want a few different varieties, the costs start to add up fast.
Buying seeds off the racks at stores doesn’t change the cost picture at all. In fact, those seeds get exposed to all kinds of conditions while sitting out in the store which can affect their germination rate (the rate at which those seeds sprout and grow) and leave you having to buy even more seed to get enough plants.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Seed saving is a time-honored tradition practiced the world over. So here are 11 reasons why seed saving needs to become part of your gardening future.
What’s in it for you?
Seed saving has several direct personal benefits for gardeners who take up the practice. Here are 11 reasons to save seeds, starting with the most personal reasons first:
1. Seed Saving = FREE Food
There can be no arguing that the main personal benefit of seed saving is free food. Buy seed or a transplant once, and thereafter grow for generations on the bounty of the seed you save.
Seed saving is a fantastically cost-effective way to eat well. And because homegrown seeds are free for you, it is easy to share the bounty of those seeds with friends and neighbors.
2. Seed Saving Gives You Better Germination
Seeds harvested fresh, dried and stored properly germinate at much higher rates than seeds you buy. Commercial seeds have to travel in some fashion to get to you, whether that is shipping from seed companies, or from the wire racks at stores. The less time seeds are exposed to adverse conditions, the better they start growing.
When you gather your own seeds, you have total control over how they are handled and it makes a huge difference when it comes time to start growing them in the coming years. And I mean years (plural, not a typo) because many vegetables seeds can be stored and remain viable for 10 years or more when handled properly.
3. Seed Saving Gives You Access Gourmet Food
Why stick to the basics when seed saving makes gourmet foods readily available? If you garden anyway, it’s easy to grow colorful peppers, rainbows of string beans (yellow, green, purple, white), all shapes and sizes of tomatoes, yellow zucchini, rainbow carrots, colorful beets, and more at home from seed.
Just saying, there are more varieties of lettuce out there than iceberg, romaine and buttercrunch. Lots more.
Seed saving opens up a world of color, taste, and magic for your dinner plate. And all this variety and color will not only appease your hungry eyes, it will benefit your mind and body too with all the extra nutrition found in deep green and brightly colored veggies.
Why seed saving makes gardening easier in the future
Seed saving does more than just put food on your plate in the future. It actually lets you make improvements that can make growing food easier and easier.