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Open-Pollinated, Heirloom & Homestead SeedsEspecially adapted for Northern GardensWhy Save Seed?One of the advantages of open pollinated seeds is that you can save seeds from your own plants. With heirloom varieties, you can get a plant similar to one grown long ago and far away. This is a form of time travel. Working in your garden, you can link past and future. You can bring ancient wisdom, to your table. This is very easily done for some plants, but others require specific information so that you do not get a cross with some other plant in your garden or a neighbor’s garden or even in the wild. (These crosses sometimes grow into plants with new desired traits that are valuable to you but, as often as not, they create a cross that is not valuable to you). Good Seed has compiled this seed saving information to help you. You may have varieties that you are fond of and wish to save and to pass on. You may get excited about seed saving and have a collection of your own. In any case you are part of a tradition that has been happening since agriculture began and all over the world. Selecting seeds and passing them on is the fundamental basis of agriculture and you can do it in your garden. It is a form of international relations. Your favorite tomato may have originated in a village in Siberia, or Italy. It may have been brought to the Americas tied into the corner of a handkerchief or even sewn into clothing. It may have come from a Mandan village and grown there before the arrival of the Europeans. Spend your spare time among the flowers and greens: plants of such beauty growing from soil and manure. Sit among your Royal Mix sweet peas - the colors and smells are delightful! Growing food is called agriculture. You don't have to go to a museum or a library for culture. Our food comes from cultures of Native Americans (corn, beans, squash). Our food comes from Europe and the Mediterranean, from Asia and all over the world. Many of these seeds are living heirlooms. Through our gardening, we become part of that synthesis of culture. Generations of gardeners have gathered their seeds and passed them on so that we have the varieties that we have today. It is a form of living history and gives us the huge variety of seeds that we as gardeners have access to today. Reasons to save seed:
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