Making Use of Old Garden Seeds. 12-18-23

Making
Use of Old Garden Seeds. 12-18-23

I love seeds. I value them and consider them magical parts of nature.
Imagine nature has managed to place the full genetic treasure of a plant into a
tiny little bit of organic matter, that when given the right conditions
blossoms into an entire new plant able to do everything the parent plant could
do. And as part of that process goes forward into the future to not only grow
but make an entire new generation in the form of the next generation of seeds.

But there is another free seed organization not requiring a group or
community activity called Free Heirloom
Seeds https://www.freeheirloomseeds.org/ that works in a similar way asking
for shipping money, though if money is a problem they will send without
shipping money to those in need. Go online and fill out the required request
and pay if you can. I got a big box of these heirloom seeds last year and had
very good success planting them. All heirloom and no hybrid seeds are sent.
This means you can save the seeds on all the varieties they send to you.

As a result of my love of them, it kills me to throw out any seeds. I
managed to acquire and build up a very large volume of seeds from several years
of seed grants and lots of seed swapping, as well as seed saving from my own
garden. I’m talking probably around 20 to 30,000 seed packets. Not a typo. These
boxes took up a large part of a room in our basement. I had gotten a grant from
an organization that takes unsold seeds from big seed companies and gives them
away for the price of shipping – America the Beautiful Fund. https://healthyshasta.org/wp-content/uploads/GardeningToolkit/Free-Seeds.pdf
Remember Lady Bird Johnson? She was the "plant first lady"
"Plant a plant, a bush or a tree" I believe was her motto. She was
part of this activity.

I worked with my city and the community garden I started here, and put in my
grant thru the city. The first year I amassed about 12,000 packets neatly boxed
in cardboard. The second year I gathered money from individual gardeners, farms
and CSAs (Community Sponsored Agriculture – subscription farms), and found one
morning my entire porch filled with about 15 huge burlap bags of not sorted
seed packets. The third year it was even more. For the great amount of work I
put into that project, I took 20% of the seeds and got first pick. As a result
I was able to not only distribute seeds to all those who put in units of money
for shipping (I asked $10/unit) but give out to worthy groups and individual
gardeners from my own stash.

I got some help sorting them from a couple of volunteer groups and NGOs who
benefited from those seeds, as well as inventory and spread sheet for
distribution of the seeds for each unit donated. This actually ended up
providing seeds for 18 community gardens, a number of farms and many gardens
around the area. But I turned over this grant writing to one of the bigger NGOs
locally and they took over. It was taking up so much time and work for me, but
once the ball was rolling, I could let go. But it left me with half a room full
of boxes of seeds.

I have a 100 bed garden with about 40 of them for annual plants, but no way
do I have enough garden space to plant that many seeds. So they just took up
space down there in the basement. Finally my husband got down there and put the
room in order. The mice had gotten to the boxes and he ended up filling about 3
huge contractor trash bags of ruined seed packets, but there were still about
15 big boxes and a bunch of flats filled with seeds which I couldn’t bring
myself to toss. I figured someone could get some value and germination out of
those old seeds, even the ones as old as 2008!

So I posted free seeds on a number of my social media groups and got
reaches. One of my Ladies Homestead Gathering members (and former intern) came
over and filled several boxes of seeds and is putting on a ‘seed ball’ AKA Seed
Ball workshops after the first of the year, using these seeds. She sorted them
into kinds of seeds so the seed balls were predictable as to needs to grow.
Here is the video from the originator of seed ball technique how to make them –
"Masanobu Fukuoka
Makes Seed Balls" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0
Those seeds from my offer have now been distributed but you can apply for free
seeds as above. I just hope we can keep those rare diverse cultivated varieties
viable and shared and passed into the future.

The biggest way to make sure we have food for the future is not only protect
our seed supply and diversity but also teach your friends, family, children,
and groups to garden, grow plants, and mentor. If the seeds aren’t utilized and
grown, and nobody knows how to grow, we will still be cutting short our future.
So share your knowledge!  

Since the free seed offer and the collection for seed ball making, I’ve had
a number of other interested seed lovers coming in to bring away the last of
these seeds. Since these seeds are considered expired or too old to use (which
I disagree with) I thought I should share some wisdom and information about
this so you can go into your stash and still manage to get some real use out of
those heirloom, heritage or ‘open pollinated’ seeds (don’t bother with hybrid
or GMO seeds as they do not breed true and therefore are not worth the effort).
Just get those which will germinate, grow them, then save those seeds so we
don’t waste our genetic heritage of edible and medicinal plants.

Did you know that we have lost 90% of the edible and medicinal plants
genetic treasures on this planet? If it weren’t for the individual people
saving their seeds, and the seed banks around the world, we would be down to
the few seed varieties the seed and agricultural companies deem useful, stopping
the production of the rest of them for seed companies which have been suborned
to ‘big ag’. We have lost to greedy corporations like Monsanto so many of the
small family owned seed companies that have been supplying us with so many of
those rare bio diverse varieties we depend on for our future. The business of
big Ag is profit and if they can’t control that bio-diversity they loose money.

So most of those purchased small seed companies are loaded with hybrids and
just a few of the heirlooms. There are still some great seed companies that
keep the faith, including Bakers Creek Heirloom Seed, Seed Savers, and others. So,
keeping and saving these varieties is not only important, but VITAL! If we are
stuck with just a few commercial varieties and the weather changes drastically,
they will only provide a few that grow in adverse conditions, unlike the vast
bio-diversity of the heirloom varieties out there. We need that diversity for
the stability of food for the future.

Therefore, I happily turned over the majority of those boxes of seed
packets, keeping enough of the various kinds to supply me with possible
germination experiments. One of the ethics points of Permaculture Design is
"Equitable Use of the Abundance of the first two points" namely Care
of the Earth, and Care of People. With the hope that they all will share and
spread the bounty. But for those people, who are working for their own gardens,
or senior centers and garden groups, here is more information about how to save
those vital disappearing cultivated varieties and species of wild plants we
need to save. We need to pass it forward and teach our neighbors and friends,
family, and groups, the knowledge to support our edible and medicinal crops.
It’s about future survival and it’s up to us. So here is what I put together:

Germinating old seeds. So, for
those of you gardeners who have a stash of seeds and think anything over about
3 years old are worthless you need to pay attention. They can be saved! Here is
the video on how to get those seeds, at least a percentage of them, growing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQhairhc0Q0 You still won’t get 100% but if you
get a couple of plants out of an old packet, you can plant the seedling then
save the seeds from it for later planting.

Good planting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Good planting.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

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