General

Why You Should Be Saving Seeds (Even If You Don’t Have a Garden)

April 25, 2017

Watch this movie to get inspired about saving seeds. And then do it.

As I was writing this I got my Seed Savers Exchange catalog, which comes to me annually out of Decorah, Iowa. Seed Savers is one of the stars of Seed: The Untold Story. If you’ve not heard of them—or of the idea of saving heirloom seeds—I’ll not be surprised. There aren’t that many of us growing our own vegetable seeds. If you’re already a seed saver, this is a swell movie about our people. If you’re not, it will tell you why you might want to join us.

I know about these things because of Mary Schultz, who was lettuce curator for Seed Savers when I met her (nearly 25 years ago). She showed up at my office and commanded I appear at her garden outside Monroe, Washington. She had 300-plus varieties of lettuce that she grew out on a three-year rotation, 100 a year. For a few years I helped set out a thousand or so lettuce starts (multiples of each kind to keep up genetic variety) on whatever acre or two Mary rented that year, in addition to 80 or so varieties of potatoes, a slew of beans, and vegetables for market. Since then, I’ve saved some sort of seeds most every year. This year I grew and saved three kinds of beans, six varieties of potato, and five garlics.