Starting Saving Seeds

Mouthwatering heirlooms, exciting hybrids, sensational herbs, colorful flowers - you dream of a garden overflowing with vibrant, healthy plants. Turn your dream garden into reality with seeds you save and start yourself! With easy ideas on harvesting, storing, sowing and nurturing your seeds into flourishing plants, this helpful guide gives you a sure path from start to success. In it, you get: A look at seed and plant anatomy and how pollination works. Simple suggestions for identifying seeds to save, and for gathering and prepping seeds for next year's garden. Guidance on germinating seeds, indoors or out, using scarification or stratification. Tips for transplanting, thinning, hardening off, and protecting seedlings from weather, pests and disease. Easy ideas for cross-breeding plants and creating hybrids suited to your garden and climate. A comprehensive directory of botanical names and harvesting, germination, and sowing data for hundreds of plants. The Complete Idiot's Guide To Seed Saving And Starting is an essential resource to reap richer results with plants grown from your own seeds!

"Grow ... food and flowers from seeds, then save seeds to make next year's garden even better."--

A complete seed-saving guide of 160 vegetables, including detailed info on each vegetable.

Enjoy your favorite varieties of garden plants year after year with this comprehensive guide to gathering, preparing, and planting seeds. Authors Robert Gough and Cheryl Moore-Gough provide simple instructions that clearly explain the whole process, from basic plant biology to proper seed storage and successful propagation. Gardeners of any experience level will find all the information they need to preserve genetic diversity, cut costs, and extend the life of their favorite plants to the next generation and beyond.

If you want to grow healthy vegetables at home, but have hesitated because it seems too hard and time consuming, Organic Gardening for Everyone is your perfect hands-on guide—an “if I can do it, you can do it” case study that addresses your concerns and gets you started. Loaded with practical advice and step-by-step guidance, Organic Gardening for Everyone takes a very personal and friendly approach to a subject that can be intimidating. It is a first-class primer on organic vegetable gardening, and an inspirational story about how anyone can balance the rigors of gardening with the demands of a modern, family-oriented lifestyle. In 2012, a California mom decided to start an organic vegetable garden. But she went about it in an unusual way: she crowdsourced it by launching a YouTube channel under the name "CaliKim" and asking for help. And then she started planting. As questions came up, she turned to her viewers and subscribers and they replied with answers and advice. As she learned, her garden grew successfully—even in the hot, harsh California climate. Her expertise also grew, and now she answers many more questions than she asks and has become a very accomplished home gardener. And CaliKim has a great story to tell: growing healthy organic vegetables for your family is not difficult, even for today’s time-challenged lifestyles. She provides complete step-by-step information on growing the most popular edibles organically, and also gives sound advice on how to take on the challenges of balancing a hectic lifestyle with successful growing—and how to involve the whole family in the process. You'll be rewarded for your effort every time you place a plate of natural, organic vegetables on the family dinner table knowing exactly what they are, what is in them, and where they came from.

Saving More Than Seeds advances understandings of seed-people relations, with particular focus on seed saving. The practice of reusing and exchanging seeds provides foundation for food production and allows humans and seed to adapt together in dynamic socionatural conditions. But the practice and its practitioners are easily taken for granted, even as they are threatened by neoliberalisation. Combining original ethnographic research with investigation of an evolving corporate seed order, this book reveals seed saving not only as it occurs in fields and gardens but also as it associates with genebanking, genetic engineering, intellectual property rights, and agrifood regulations. Drawing on diverse social sciences literatures, Phillips illustrates ongoing practices of thinking, feeling, and acting with seeds, raising questions about what seed-people relations should accomplish and how different ways of relating might be pursued to change collective futures.

Food reliability matters more than ever. Joseph Lofthouse taught landrace gardening at conferences hosted by the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance, National Heirloom Expo, Organic Seed Alliance, Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA-NY), and Utah Farm & Food Conference. He serves as World Tomato Society ambassador. "Landrace Gardening is brilliant. It's a love story! And 2 parts gardening handbook. There are so many revelations I don't know where to begin? AMAZING. In every way this is a book for the ages. Bravo Joseph." Dan Barber, Blue Hill At Stone Barns, and Row 7 Seed Company. "There is magic in the way Joseph Lofthouse marries his no-stress approach to gardening with such deep love and passion. This book is as much a gardening manual as it is a re-framing of our relationship with each other and the world. Landrace Gardening gives us a roadmap to the kind of joyful food security that we need for healing many of the most important wounds of our time." Jason Padvorac"Joseph Lofthouse has a focus upon something that all gardeners should know: Landrace varieties are the way to sustainability. The best part is that everything in his book is adaptable for any gardener. No high level knowledge of botany or chemistry is required. The versatility and diversity of growing landrace plants speaks for themselves." Jere Gettle- Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. "The western sustainable agriculture movement has long needed its own version of the 'One Straw Revolution'. Joseph Lofthouse provides just that. With revolutionary gusto based on heretical thought and age old human gnosis. In Landrace Gardening, Food Security... Lofthouse steps firmly into the role of Iconoclast and elder seed shaman." Alan Bishop, Alchemist at Spirits Of French Lick

Grow fabulous food and flowers from seeds, then save seeds to make next year's garden even better. Creating dinner from food you’ve grown provides a fantastic sense of accomplishment. Now, imagine the pleasure of starting plants from seeds, tending them, planting them in your garden, harvesting their fruits, and enjoying a delicious meal or bouquet. But that's not the end of the journey. Now you can turn around and save the best seeds for next year’s garden. Suddenly, you’re self-sufficient; you’ve grown your own garden from seed to seed. In this book, you'll find the tools you need to become a seed starting and saving champion. Author and gardening expert Julie Thompson-Adolf walks you through every step of the journey, making the entire process a joy. You’ll find hints to encourage stubborn seeds to germinate, lists of varieties to add to your garden, charts for quick growing reference, and simple DIY projects to aid your seed starting and saving adventure. (Learn how to make seed bombs and an indoor seed-starting station.) The extensive plant entries inside cover all the most popular vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. Get started with tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and melons, or chamomile, cosmos, sweet peas, and poppies—accompanied by beautiful photography from Libby Williams. Whether you’re an experienced gardener new to seed starting and saving or a brand-new grower, you’ll soon have healthy, productive, beautiful plants for your garden.