Today’s guest is James Ulager, the author Beginning Seed Saving for the home gardener, and though this certainly isn’t a talk about farm scale seed saving and propagation, I thought it was essential to include in this series. In my opinion, seed saving and selective breeding is one of the best ways that anyone with even a small yard or garden can participate in ensuring the food security of future generations. We live in a time when governments have deemed it possible to patent seeds and own genetic information. This not only threatens the sovereignty of our seeds, but of every aspect of our food system as life itself is now able to be patented and owned. Yet we all still have the capacity to grow and save seeds that keep the genetic history that is the foundation of so many cultures alive and evolving, not through technological genetic tampering, but through the stewardship and care that selects for adaptation and resilience. While this is a topic that I’m looking forward to exploring from a lot of different perspectives and advanced applications, James gives a wonderful talk in this episode that directly speaks to the novice gardener. 

In this session we break down just how easy it is to get started saving your own seeds and just how powerful an action it actually is. We cover all the essentials like knowing when the seeds are ready to harvest, the best way to store them for good germination rates, and we even get into more intermediate steps like working with biennials and plant varieties that don’t like to grow true from seed if they’re cross pollinated. 

James does a great job at making this practice accessible and fun and because I’m so excited to get more people saving and breeding their own seeds, I’ve teamed up with New Society Publishers to give away a free copy of the book. If you want to win a copy of Beginning seed saving for the home gardener just message me through our dedicated facebook group called Abundant Edge weekly regenerative skills and write a post about why you want to save your own seeds. I’ll select a winner one week after this episode comes out and send a hard copy of the book to you if you live in the US or Canada or a digital copy if you live anywhere else in the world.   

Resources:

https://www.seedsavers.org/

https://newsociety.com/books/b/beginning-seed-saving-for-the-home-gardener