[Arktwo] Seed Supplementary On Saving Seeds

[Bruce Beach]

Saving seeds is different -
from storing them.
The expression "Seed Saving"
means to keep the seeds
from the fruits and vegetables that you use -
rather than throwing them into the compost heap -
(I hope you have a compost heap.)

Among my readers
I have some SERIOUS Seed Savers.
Most of you have never saved a seed -
and planted it
and then harvested the result.

I am not trying to make you into
SERIOUS Seed Savers.
Like everything else -
there are the casual doers -
and those who are serious about it.

Sunday drivers are not race car drivers.
I am not even trying to make you
into a Sunday Seed Saver.
It is more like I am trying to get you -
a learner's driving permit -
rather than a full license.

Saving seeds is not that hard.
I watch my wife do it all the time -
(actually - I have never saved a seed myself).
But -
I do what she tells me to do.

I have taken the Seeds of Diversity
Seed Saving Course
with her.
We sit and discuss her seed saving books.
And -
I listen in to the talks
with her many seed saving friends.

I think I could do it.
But, I won't.
And it may be that you can do it -
but that you won't.
At least you can learn about it -
and make preparation to do it.

Books are one good way to make preparation.
Jean has several books.
I am not bothering to check
which one's they are.

CC writes:

A really good book that would help your readers is called Seed to Seed by
Suzanne Ashworth. It covers all stages of  planting, harvesting and seed
saving and a really good thing I didn't know about was a section on hand
pollination. It really is a must have and you can usually get them cheaper
through Amazon.com if you don't mind a used book...

Shane says: "Get a copy of 'Seed to Seed' and 'Saving Seeds'"

Shane also says:

"Anyways, rather than a couple 1,000 people heeding your advice to
scramble and get what seeds remain, WHICH WON'T LAST OR GO FAR, I'd
like to see a couple hundred people instead seriously explore
learning and beginning seed-to-seed production operations locally."

I think Shane overestimates
my power to motivate people.
I don't know that I have motivated
much more than a couple of hundred people
to build shelters.
It was only a few hundred
that I got to get radiation equipment.
Okay,
thousand have gotten the CD
and other materials -
but how many actually prep -
I don't know.

So -
back to my less than -
Sunday Seed Savers.

I have googled Seed books -
and the two above
do seem to be the most recommended.
Here is another cheap one:

http://www.seedstrust.com/cgi-bin/miva?Merchant2/merchant.mv+Screen=PROD&Sto
re_Code=ST&Product_Code=90400

And here is a thirty page one -
that you can download for free -
in .pdf right off the Internet.
It looks pretty good to me.
It is called
The Family Seed Saving Book

http://www.livingschools.com.au/pdf/seedsaving.pdf

Actually -
all that I have ever personally read
is the about a dozen page course outline
from our Seed Saver Course.

Anyway,
there are hundreds of books out there
and here is a university site
that attempts to list the one's
that it thinks are most important.

http://www.plbr.cornell.edu/PSI/books.html

My recommendation is
that you spend twenty minutes
reading the following
VERY SIMPLE site -

http://www.kidsgardening.com/growingideas/projects/aug04/pg1.html

and then order at least one book.

-----------
I don't think seed saving
is really all that complicated.
Jean does it all the time.
She has a tin-foil pie pan
there on the counter
where she cooks -
and she just flips seeds onto it.
There are often little lids -
or glasses with some water in them -
also sitting around with seeds.
Different strokes for different seeds -
I suppose.

Anyway,
she dries them,
packages them in little cellophane pouches -
with a piece of paper saying what they are -
and then we end up with several flat cardboard boxes -
filled with those.

For more serious seed saving -
she had me build her a dryer.
I will tell you how I did that.
I found an old wooden chest -
single boards, not closely joined,
and about three feet long -
little over a foot wide -
a foot and a half deep.

I sat it vertically on its end -
put four casters on the bottom -
hinges on one side of the lid -
and a screen door hook on the other.
You could use any wooden box -
that is of a convenient size.

About four or five inches apart -
on both side walls
I tacked some little square moulding -
directly across from each other
to act as shelving supports.

The shelves I made out of aluminium
screening material.
You can get this stuff in strips
at the hardware store.
Cut notches at the right lengths
to make like a picture frame
and bend it into picture frame shape,
whatever size your shelves need to be.

The framing material comes with a little groove -
into which you can press metal screen door screen -
to be held by the plastic string -
that they also sell.

Next easiest thing -
is to buy a short extension cord -
that has a number of outlets
on the one end
along with a  built-in switch
that turns all the outlets on and off -
at once.
Mount this on the outside of your box.
I think on the back at the top -
is the best place -
although that may be a little less
convenient to see or reach.

Next - you need a heat source
for your drying box.
Some people would use a lamp fixture.
Others a small heating element
out of some small appliance.
Whatever -
you don't want much heat.

What I did -
was use an old warming pad
that sat on the table
to keep dishes warm.
It was a couple of feet long
and had a solid surface.
This I mounted vertically
to the back wall.

Lastly and most importantly -
you want to mount a small fan -
(lots of these are availabel
out of old computers and such)
near the bottom with an intake hole
cut to the outside.
I didn't have to worry about exhaust holes -
because my box wasn't that tight.
However, if you do need holes -
put them around the sides -
near the top.

A larger hole
near the bottom -
to get your two cords
(heating and fan)
out of the box -
around to where you can plug them in -
to your switchable extension cord -
and there you have it.
(bundle up extra dryer and fan cord -
and tie it off with something
like a rubber band)

Our seed/food dryer has worked perfectly
for a couple of decades.
The reason that I have gone into
such detail -
is that this has a lot of additional utility -
besides drying bulk seeds.

You can also use this to dry -
fruit and vegetables
(what they call making edible leathers)
for storage.

Of course -
comes the day that you don't have electricity -
you could make a box -
say on the ground -
and cover it with a piece
of salvage glass -
and let the sun do the drying in there.

You can do the same thing
with drying racks outside.
Sometimes, for some things,
using a smoke fire -
(I have actually sat around
such fires
in native villages -
while they made deer and moose 'jerky'.
Ended up there -
because Jean is big on the Native scene -
and I of course end up wherever she takes me.)

But now -
I have started to go native on you -
and have told you more
about drying than you may have wanted to know.

My wife is sitting
at this very moment
with paper and pen in hand -
in front of our wood stove
in what was my grandmother's
old wooden rocker -
with her doggy sleeping at her feet -
as she writes about the SOL.

She says that she will want me
to help edit it -
before we send it out to those
who have asked for it.

Our lives is a strange mixture -
of the old and the new.
Yep, we are old.
She (and her mother)
were born in this village -
She early in the last century -
and her mother in the century before that.

We were looking at a picture yesterday -
of her sister in the door
of the old mill that they owned
here in the village.
(It is where Ark Two is located now located.)
Water powered.
All before the days of electricity.

Now -
here I sit at a computer -
literally writing to the world -
from this little village in Canada.
But I think that -
some of this old stuff
may prove useful to you again.

Today -
Monsanto patents seeds
and tries to make it illegal
for farmers to save the seed.
That is where we have come to -
today.

But as Jean says -
the world and the worm turns -
and it may all come back to
our way again.

Still more to say,
about Seed Storage -
which is a subset of Seed Saving -
but it is too much
to cover off in this newsletter
so - I can see that will have to be
in a separate newsletter,
and I will just cut this off at this point -
and break it into two parts
with the next
Seed Supplementary
being on
Storing Seeds,
but this is all that I am going to say
about Seed Saving -
to the chagrin of my
SERIOUS Seed Saver readers.

Peace and love,
Bruce
DawnSayer@webpal.org