Consider a tomato seed.
One tiny seed in the palm of your hand.
In that seed is everything needed to produce a plant.
A plant that will, in turn, produce an average of 15 tomatoes. Each tomato holding an average of 30 seeds.
From just a single tomato seed, Nature yields a return of 450 potential plants, which in turn produce another 6,750 tomato plants and 202,500 more seeds! In one year you have enough to start a market garden and in two, you could have enough for a bonafide tomato farm!
Isn’t that incredible?
And it isn’t just tomatoes. Every vegetable, fruit, herb or flower share the same generous possibilities. All tucked into a single seed that multiplies in crazy proportions with lightening speed. Just one more thing to appreciate about Nature.
Collecting your own seed is not only good economics, it is a great way to improve your garden’s future growth potential. By collecting seeds that represent the qualities you want, you will steadily improve the genetics of your garden.
Desired qualities might be the quickest ripening tomato, the slowest bolting lettuce, the biggest squash, the hottest pepper, etc. It’s all up to you and Nature. It’s like being lab partners with the most incredible scientist in the universe.
Gardeners who collect their own seeds often are the ones with the most amazing gardens, simply because the selected seeds are best suited for their own particular climate and soil conditions.
Make sure you select plants that are labelled “open pollinated” rather than hybrid.
Hybrids are crosses between two different strains designed to produce a plant that exhibits the best qualities from both. However, if you save the seed, it will revert back to one parent or the other. If you want to grow the same plant again next year, you have to buy another packet of the hybrid seed from the nursery.
Open pollinated means to “breed true” or that plants produced from the seed will reproduce the same plant in the future.
If you are interested in collecting seeds there is a lot of information online or in books dedicated to the practice. Once you start, I guarantee it will prove to be a mesmerizing, and incredibly rewarding, hobby. There is no end to the exciting possibilities. You may even come up with something unique to share with others.
Garden Trivia 