It’s time to buy your seeds! If you haven’t been seed saving, that is. Now mind you, for those of you who are saving seeds I completely understand how you could become so excited over your tomato crop making sauce and ketchup that you completely forgot to save a few ripe tomatoes for the purpose of saving seeds. Yes, you plopped them right into the boiling water for skin removal without even thinking. It happens. It’s okay. More Brandywine tomato seeds are on my list, too. I mean, I had such awesome luck with these guys this year I definitely need more.
But take heart! You’re enjoying the thrill of gardening, reaping what you sow and cooking the dickens out of it. For my raw food fans, the concept remains the same. Chopping seeds in your Cuisinart isn’t helpful for seed saving so slow down…take a deep breath and think before you throw the switch. 🙂 I’m just sayin’…
Keep in mind when the seed catalogs arrive and you eagerly run to the mailbox (or jog—ice tends to be slippery) and pull out those gorgeous pages filled with plump ripe fruits and vegetables, a colorful array of flowers and herbs, you want to look for heirloom seeds. Not hybrid, not super-duper-extra-sweet or double the normal growth potential… Uh, uh. You want heirloom and preferably organic. Why?
Because once you plant those hybrid seeds, the ones meant to overcome Mother Nature’s deficiencies (don’t let her hear you say that out loud) and harvest the produce and save your seeds, you’ll be sorely disappointed next season. Hybrids and the like aren’t natural and when you replant the seeds, your new crop of plants will not reproduce the original fruit if they germinate at all. If you’re lucky, you may plant hybrid Better Boys one season—thrilled with the beasts of bounty they produce—but next season? These bad boys might only yield a crop of cherry-like tomatoes. It happens.
So save yourself the heartache and buy heirloom. And remember to buy only what you’ll actually eat. Plant seeds according to package instructions and keep moist. Think of them as babies and treat them as such. This spring I’m putting corn back on my list. Now that I know how to control those dastardly insects, I think I can reap a golden harvest this year. Wish me luck! Until then…happy gardening!
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