General Guidelines to Seed Saving
Remember the adage "What you reap, so shall you sow." Well, that can be taken quite literally in the world of seed saving (with the exception of plants that easily cross-pollinate like the "easy" and "difficult" seeds to save). If you harvest small tomatoes, you're likely to get small tomatoes. If you harvest the first tomatoes of the season, their offspring will be more likely to produce earlier in the season.
When choosing which seeds to harvest consider the following:
When choosing which seeds to harvest consider the following:
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After you save the seeds, make a note of why you chose these particular seeds, where you grew them, and when you harvested them. This process will help you to learn from your plants and to start creating the varieties that work best for your location.
Seed cleaning
- Most seeds can be cleaned using a variety of screens of different mesh sizes. You can sometimes pick up different sieves at thrift stores that do the job for many crops when working on a small scale.
- If you are saving seed for your community, having a set of different screens such as these is useful. The Seed Garden book will tell you which mesh sizes to use with different crops.
- If you are at a community level of seed cleaning, this do-it-yourself seed cleaning machine is super helpful.