between the two. Sometimes that cross produces a good offspring (that’s one way to get new varieties), but usually you’ll just get a weird squash. I remember letting some squash plants that had sprouted in the compost pile mature. I got a cross between a striped summer ball squash and an acorn squash: a striped, tough-skinned, stringy summer squash.
When you intend to save seeds in order to perpetuate a variety, you must always take steps to prevent cross-pollination when you plan your garden. With plants that have perfect flowers and usually pollinate themselves before they open (such as beans), cross-pollination is seldom a problem. Others, such as those in the squash family, cross-pollinate readily, so they must be isolated to ensure that the variety remains pure.
David Cavagnaro once manager of the Seed Saver’s garden in Decorah, Iowa, harvests beans for me to sample.
There are a number of ways to isolate plants. First, if your garden is not near your neighbors’, plant only one variety of each type of vegetable, since pollination does not occur among different genera. Or plant potential cross-pollinators far apart from each other (some varieties need be separated by only a hundred feet, while others require half a mile). For instance, if you and your neighbors grow different varieties of squash or corn within three hundred feet of each other, you won’t be able to save seeds, since the pollen from the other varieties will be carried to your plants. A physical barrier might work to isolate your heirlooms: rows of tall corn between species of peppers, for example, or a building standing between your potential crosspollinators.
Another fundamental point is one I touched on earlier: saving the seeds of hybrids is wasted energy, since hybrid plants don’t reproduce themselves. You have to know which plants are open-pollinated varieties that give viable offspring and which are hybrids. (To prevent confusion, seed companies label hybrids and F1 hybrids, a form of hybrid, on their seed packets and in their catalogs.)
Finally, you have to know the life cycle of your plants. While most of our vegetables are annuals (maturing in one season), many are biennials, meaning they take two seasons to reproduce. Some popular biennials are beets, carrots, and parsley. With biennials, you get no seeds the first growing season.
With these basic botanical concepts under your belt, there are a few more particulars to master for seed saving:
Saving seeds as shown here at Old Sturbridge Village was a necessity in Colonial times as there were few seed companies.
In the Seed Saver’s garden in Decorah, Iowa the peppers and eggplants are ‘caged’ to prevent bees from cross pollinating the plants and contaminating the varieties.
1. Learn to recognize plant diseases, since some (particularly viruses) are transmitted in seeds.
2. Always label your seed rows and seed containers; your memory can play tricks on you.
3. Never plant all your seeds at once, lest the elements wipe them out.
4. Learn to select the best seeds for the next generation. Select seeds from the healthiest plants and from those producing the best vegetables.
5. To maintain a strong gene pool, select seeds from a number of plants, not just one or two. (This does not apply to self-pollinating varieties; see “Saving Bean Seeds” below.)
6. Get to know the vegetable families, since members of the same family often cross-pollinate. (A list of vegetable families is included in Appendix A, with the information on crop rotation. See page 90.)
7. Only mature, ripe seeds will be viable. Learn what such seeds look like for all your vegetables.
Everyone interested in seed saving will benefit from reading Seed to Seed, by Suzanne Ashworth. She gives detailed instructions on how to save seeds of all kinds of vegetables.
Saving Bean Seeds
Beans are the easiest vegetable seeds to save. Since they are mostly self-pollinating, you’ll be able to grow two or three varieties with few cross-pollination problems. Still, plant varieties that are very different next to each other. Then, if any crossing does occur, the resulting seed will usually look different from the original, and you’ll know that the variety has been altered.
Plant and care for your bean plants as you would ordinarily. When harvest time approaches, choose eight or ten of the plants that are among the healthiest. With snap beans, leave a dozen or so pods on each plant to mature and cook the rest. Let dry-bean types mature as usual. Beans usually ripen from bottom to top. Pick the pods as they start to crack, or the seeds will fall out onto the ground, where they will probably get wet and start to rot.
Do not save seeds from diseased plants. Diseases borne by bean seeds are anthracnose and bacterial blight. Symptoms of anthracnose are small brown spots that enlarge to become sunken black spots. Bacterial blight is characterized by dark green spots on the pods, which slowly become dry and brick red.
The most bothersome pest of bean seeds is the weevil. After you dry your bean seeds thoroughly (see below), pack them in a mason jar (or a like container), label them, and freeze them for twenty-four hours to kill any weevils. Then put them in a cool dark place. (See “An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Vegetables,” page 21, for information on saving the seeds of lettuces, peppers, and tomatoes.)
Storing Seeds
Beans are the easiest seeds to save—others require a little more effort. Seeds must be stored carefully to ensure germination the next season. The greatest enemy of seed viability is moisture, so you must dry the seeds thoroughly before storing them. Lay them out on a screen in a warm, dry room for a few weeks, stirring them every few days. Biting a seed is a good test: if you can’t dent it, it’s probably dry enough.
Another problem is heat. Seeds must be stored in a cool, dry, dark place, but many can be frozen if they’re dried properly and placed in a sealed container. They will stay viable for years in a freezer if they’re properly packaged in an airtight freezer bag. (Don’t freeze bean or pea seeds, though. They need more air than freezing permits.)
The seed room at the Seed Savers contains the seeds of hundreds of bean varieties all cataloged and sealed in jars.
heirloom garden style
A typical nineteenth-century garden would have included vegetables to be eaten fresh in the summer. But it would also be the primary supply of year-round vegetables and would include vegetables to preserve for the winter
An heirloom garden can take any form. Heirloom vegetables and flowers can be intermingled with modern varieties or grown in a garden at their own. The following heirloom gardens illustrate many planting options.
The Pliny Freeman Garden
I went to Old Sturbridge Village, an outdoor museum
