Being a Southern Hemisphere Walrus(!) I’m putting in my garden right now - Tomatos, Chillis, Pumpkin, Cucumber, eggplant, Sweetcorn and so on. I’ve got potatos growing like weeds.
It suddenly struck me that seeds are a cheap but vital part of prepping. It also struck me that if TSHTF the amount of preps that are needed are enough to guarantee a food supply is pretty much a year, depending on the season when a pandemic struck.
I had a copy of a book, first published here in 1942, that explained in very simple terms, how to grow vegetables, how to lay out a vegetable garden, and what to plant and when - it was based on the needs of a family of four and it was designed to help people grow their own food to help the war effort.
I had the last edition, published in 1968, before the government discontinued it, in favor of all sorts of “commercial” books, which often push certain brands of fertilizer and seeds.
Back in 1999 I actually built their recommended garden. I ran it for three years until divorce settlements robbed me of the land. It was highly therapeutic, growing your own vegetables, and I recommend it to anyone who gets stressed. My office staff also benefited because it really did produce the goods.
You basically need a garden about forty feet by sixty feet, broken up into beds no more than three feet wide, at least in my climate.
I’m trying to find my book and add it to my preps box, along with a stack of seeds - including a few flowers. Be sure to use “seed savers” type seeds - which have seed that can be harvested.
I agree, Walrus
I recently bought lots of different veggie seeds and plan on using them next year and then keeping a stock of them for the next year. I even found some potato seeds; not seed potatos but actual potato seeds. Something I never knew existed before.
Now if I could only get someone besides me to get the garden ready for next spring.
Consider “heritage” seeds, grown from old stock, non-hybrid, plants produces seeds that produce plants…hybrids(sp) do not.
No Name, That is what I tried to buy… only heirloom seeds. Couldn’t find all veggies in heirloom but most of them are. Now, how to do save seeds from these plants next year? I guess Tomatos would be easy but where are the seeds from plants like celery, corn, peas, beets,etc.?
Walrus – at 19:24
I love books and seeds and gardening. Do you remember the name of the book?
Thanks in advance regardless of your memory! ;-)
Sorry. I forgot to fix my cookie. Don’t delete.
new name @20:51 Victory Seeds is where I purchased my heirloom seeds. (no interest) They have an extensive website with articles dealing with “how to’s”. I found their service prompt and accurate.
Books on the french method of gardening were very helpful for preparation of soil, crop rotation and production. The premise is you grow everything on 4 ft squares of soil staggering the plant so the garden produces throughout the season. Mostly organic point of view.
new name @ 20:54
To produce seeds the plant must mature past the point of consumption and flower. Then the seed will become evident. Some plant require pollination (transfer of pollen from male to female plant via wind, bees ect.) to produce seeds others are self pollinating.
As mentioned above, in order to get viable seeds, your best bet is Heirlooms or older commercial varieties. I don’t have experience with the newer hybrids but I would not be surprised if they did not produce viable seeds.
As to specific plants: Celery: no clue. Do not harvest a few plants and see what happens. They should eventually flower and go to seed.
Pod plants like peas and beans: Select a few plants and pick the pods to eat. Once the plants have a sufficient number of pods/flowers then stop picking and wait for the pods to dry. Try to keep these pods from getting wet. Harvest the other plants for as long as you can.
Root veggies like radishes, turnips, beets and onions: don’t pick a few plants. They will eventually flower and go to seed. For onions you can also leave them in the ground (depending on the severity of the winter). Before the first frost knock over the greens and cover with hay or grass. You won’t get more onions but they will be bigger.
Tomatoes: easy, pick when ripe. Scoop out seeds and let dry on paper towels.
Corn: Never tried this but again do not pick a few ears and let the husk dry on the plant. Most recent corn varieties are hybrids so I have no idea if the kernels will be viable. Your best bet is heirloom varieties.
Potatoes: again I have never tried this but if your growing season is sufficiently long the plants will flower and seed. Having said that, there is an easier way. Set aside some potatoes. When it is time to plant cut out the eyes from the potatoes and plant them. Leave a good chunk of potatoe with the eye. I have tried this a few times and had luck about 50% of the time.
For all of the above, store in a cool, dark dry place.
Mike
check out “Seed to Seed” by Suzanne Ashworth - ‘Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for vegetable gardeners’
look at the website seedsavers.org
Newore at 00:26.
Thanks for the link. I have a question for you or anyone else that might know the answer.
About 15 years ago I dealt with an organization that was dedicated to preserving heirlooms. They would send you seeds and the recipient would plant them and send back seeds. It was a dispersed seed bank. They had guidelines on how many and how far to plant to avoid cross-contamination. I cannot remember the name of the organization. Amy one know what org I am talking about?
Thanks, Mike
For tomatoes, websites said to put seeds in a little bowl of water, cover, set in warm place, and let ferment a few days, then rinse off the viscous stuff surrounding the seeds (stinky by then) and let seeds dry on plate. Stir to turn seeds now and then. (I think if you use a paper towel, the seeds are so small that they are hard to remove from the paper.) I did this with a few tomatoes this year.
CAMike at 11:10
Your organization in question is Seed Saver’s exchange. They have a web presence.
seed savers exchange is at the seedsavers.org link above
also of interest…
an index page of organic, open pollinated resources at organic consumers organize by state.
nativeseeds.org good for beans and peppers
Folks, thanks for the info on seed savers! I have a large package of heirloom seeds from Y2K prep but not sure how viable they still are. There were suposed to be packaged for storage and I have handled them properly (cool, dry, dark). Does anyone know how long such should last?
EOD - I’d replace the seed if you haven’t been storing it in a frost-free freezer, just to be on the safe side.
EOD, depends on what kind -probably still good to try.(They ain’t gettin’ any younger!) Some are good for years, properly stored. (Parsnip seed, doesn’t keep long, only short storage one I can think of, just now)
See if your library has “Seed to Seed” by Suzanne Ashworth.
Oh, or this one: “Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener’s Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History” by William Woys Weaver. (If the libary doesn’t have them, try suggesting these go on their wish list!)
Good tips one and all. Had been meaning to buy some more recent seeds and was glad to get reminded about this.
LMWatbullRun – at 21:33 Could you be so kind and check out this site and tell me if you feel the prices are about right.
http://www.heirloomseeds.com/victory.html
Thank you very much
They found grain seeds in an Egyptian tomb sealed for 3000 years and planted them and they grew.
Anon_451
A lot depends on how many seeds you get for that price. I did not check the volume of the packets to see whether they were comparable to the Victory seed site. IF they are then this looks to be a good deal. Will look later tonight to see.
LMWatBullRun – at 17:17 Thank you for your response. Could you post the Victory Seed Site? I really liked the fact that these guys package a set up for storage for at least 3 years, but the combination of seeds was not exactly what I was looking for. I guess I could buy the ones I want and vacuum seal them, but not sure about how well they would hold.
Any advice on this would be great as the ones I have are set to expire in March and would like to get a longer term set up going.
Victory Seeds site is here
I bought the prepackaged victory garden from Victory Seeds them along with quite a few other alternate packages including tobacco which is a very good natural insecticide.
If you were going to be really hardcore, I’d get a small bottle of nitrogen and put your seeds in a sealed durable container (mason jar and canning lid) with some dessicant pacs and I’d flood the jar with nitrogen gas then vacuum seal it. (not much vacuum just a psi or so) Keep seeds cold and in the dark. You could also use the oxygen absorbers Walton Feed sells to do the same thing if you have those.
Looked at both websites and it looks like the Heirloom place is about the same as the Victory Websiste; more on some things slightly less on others. You’d need to do a detailed analysis to see where the absolute best price was…. I was impressed by the information available on the Victory website, though. I may just get some seeds from the Heirloom place too and put em in the freezer for a rainy decade….. One of the few nice things about a long skinny parcel of land is that I can plant different varieties of things at each end and not worry so much ab out cross pollination, especially since the winds are so different from one end to the other.
It looks as though they both had a lot of the same plants.
You do not have to buy only heirloom seeds to be able to save seed from year to year. Any normally ‘open pollinated’ variety will work. Hybrid seeds of most veggie crops will indeed produce seed that is viable, it just wont produce offspring true to type. To know which is a hybrid seed, just look on the seed packet or in the seed description in the catalog for the word ‘hybrid’ or ‘F1′ If that word is not there, its not hybrid seed.
Hybrid seed can frequently produce more, disease resistant produce than heirlooms. Around here they are the best choice for tomatoes.
There also can be a lot of natural hybridization that can occur in your own garden. The bees dont care what flowers they visit nor in what order. If you grow several varieties of peppers or squash for example, you will get natural hybrids no matter what the seed source was. Still perfectly fine to eat.
Most present day cultivars of peas and beans are not hybrids to begin with, tend to be self-crossing, and you can save their seed from year to year, heirloom or not, with little variation over time.
Mosaic-
I am not expert in this area, but your approach would seem to require a new source of seed every year, no? I not only want to plant for this year coming up but also to get varieties that breed true and can be conserved for years.
Thanks for all the information folks. I guess I need to delve deeper into the Seed Savers site.
In regards to viability of seeds (Heirloom or otherwise), I would recommend giving them a try. Partly to maintain a source of viable seeds and also to see how well the plants will do in your area. There would be nothing worse then to have viable seeds, that you are counting on, that sprout but are not productive due to local growing conditions. I learned this the hard way.
Mike
last year a got a handfull of “horse beans or “pesant beans” they are large and flat, I know they have been grovn in Norway (quite cold climate) in the old days and I read that they are just as nutritius as soybeans, I put them in the ground and some months later I had more of them :D my point is that all preppers have a lot off seeds, the beans and the peas.. (but not the canned one ! stupid ;-D
Anyone with more experience on using the regular dry beans and peas for gardens? Are they in any evil way less productive than “seeds from the shop”?
My family regularly plants beans from the grocery store. This year we planted 12 black beans in Michigan and got approx 3 pounds of dry black beans from the plants. Not too shabby considering that these were the ones that fell on the floor as we were sorting them.
We’ve also had luck with peas (not split), Great Northern and Navy. The pinto beans never came up so we might have been using an old beans.
We haven’t bought peas in years, just save a few dried ones from the spring planting for the fall planting (got to love cold weather plants) and then save a few from the fall planting for the spring.
We don’t have a compost pile per say, we just toss the plant material back into the garden and till it under. Every year we get tomato, squash and potato plants that “volunteer” to grow and produce for us. This year we didn’t plant any squash and had so many “volunteers” that we were giving squash away as there is no way our family could possibly eat everything produced.
I can verify that!!! I have a box of squash to prove it!!!Hi Dragonlady :)
LMWatBullRun – at 21:19, oct 26. “Mosaic, am not expert in this area, but your approach would seem to require a new source of seed every year, no? I not only want to plant for this year coming up but also to get varieties that breed true and can be conserved for years.”
No, not at all. I save seed every year from plants I know to breed true such as beans and peas. Plants such as peppers that are not from hybrid seeds, and that will breed true, but cross-pollinate if there are other varieties of peppers nearby, I will either plant only one variety, or plant different varieties as far apart as possible. Or accept the hybrid (mixed) off-spring. Not always so pleasant when you grow really hot ones too. ;-)
Lettuce is another crop that does not out-cross easily and you can harvest seed from year to year no matter how many varieties you grow at the same time. They rarely naturally hybridize, like peas, beans, and tomatoes.
With respect to tomatoes, I do prefer to grow hybrids here, but I also have a seed of non-hybrids too. Non hybrid tomatoes also breed true with little outcrossing. But even if natural hybrids are formed, the fruit can be very good too. In fact, with tomatoes, you can slowly select for varities that do well in your own area. If you have limited seed, you can also easily start more tomato plants from cuttings.
Corn for example can be purchased either as hybrid or non-hybrid seed. For planting every year from home-harvested seed, get the non-hybrid. But also grow only one variety at a time, or you will end up with a mix the next generation. Or stagger planting times so they won’t be blooming at the same time and hence cross.
Also if you have seed and store it properly, (cool and dry) some can remain viable for years. Do a search for viability of vegetable seeds to get an idea. Some last longer than others.
I’ve also grown beans from the bags of dry beans in the store. Black beans and limas. Fun.