Saving Seeds

Many people ask us if we save seeds.  In some cases we grow several varieties and they would cross pollinate; we don't save those.  We do grow a few old hybrid varieties, and since the saved seed would not come true, we don't save those either.  

But we do save open pollinated seeds.  Ken has been saving hardy varieties of several crops for years.  He has to let the plant go to seed, collect, and he places plant with seed in a paper bag.  On a cold winter day - like this one that started at minus 22 Fahrenheit - Ken gets out screens, newspaper, and jars.

He screens the seeds with progressively smaller mesh

Once he has clean seeds he pours them into a jar

















and saves them for planting