There are many reasons we save seed; to save money, to preserve a non-commercially available variety, to observe varieties for adaptation to our difficult growing conditions, to share the bounty of our gardens with other seed savers and for the pleasure of becoming an observer and an active participant in our own food production.

It is important that we observe the plants closely during the entire growing season with seed production in mind. Any plants or fruits that have unusual characteristics must be removed so that varietal purity can be preserved. This is called roguing. Observe for desirable traits (i.e. the one plant that doesn't die in a frost or get mildewed as quickly as the rest) and collect seed from these particular plants. This is most valuable in adapting plants to Irish weather conditions.

If we want to distribute heirloom seeds to other Seed Savers we must ensure that they have not crossed with other varieties. Detailed instructions on how to do this are enclosed. If we want to develop our own varieties of vegetables an understanding of their genetics is helpful,

Saving your own seed is not difficult. Neither is developing your own varieties. The most important tools are observation, curiosity and a waterproof marker. Making notes each year can build to a large body of useful research material.

The Birds and the Bees story

For a plant to produce true seed it must indulge in sexual reproduction that is, a pollen grain and an ovule combine to form the embryonic seed. The pollen grain and ovule contain half the genetic material from their parent plant so both are needed to produce a complete set of genes and produce a seed. The pollen grain and the ovule may be from the same plant in which case you get a re-combination of the genetic material of the parent or they may be from different plants in which case the seed will contain genetic material from both parents.

Some plants are wind pollinated and some are insect pollinated. Usually the plants with colourful flowers are insect pollinated and the ones that are wind pollinated have pretty boring looking flowers. Of the cultivated plants, the most important wind pollinated plants are the grasses or cereals including Maize and also the beet family. They produce absolutely loads of pollen to give you hay fever and also to insure that some pollen reaches another plant of the same species. So if you want to breed true varieties of sweet corn or wheat you must grow a good big block of the crop and not have a neighbour with an even bigger block of different variety of the same species. The pollen from wind pollinated plants travels long distances and can cross oceans. Maize here would be quite difficult to save seed from if you had neighbour growing fodder maize for cows.

Insect pollinated plants have many different forms. In self pollinating flowers like a pea or tomato, pollen from the anthers falls onto the stigma of the same flower inside the closed flower and pollination occurs. In the wild forms insects would have been involved but at some point in domestication self-pollinating has been selected for. These plants do sometimes cross pollinate making it all a bit more complicated but generally make it easy for the seed saver. All you have to do is collect the mature seed, extract it from the pod or fruit, dry it and put it away till next year. Relatively small distances between varieties will avoid cross-pollination.

Things start getting more complicated when you get to Brassicas, carrots and onion family things. These plants have more open flowers and are designed for cross-pollination. The insect gets pollen all over its self and starts crawling around on these open flowers and there is a much greater chance of pollen from a different plant getting onto the stigma. Also there are wild varieties of some of these plants. Your carrot seed may be contaminated if you have wild carrot around, which is why most carrot seed is produced in Kenya where they don’t have wild carrot. We also have wild Brassicas such as charlock, which can cross with cultivated varieties. However these crosses will only produce a few plants which can usually be spotted, as white carrots for instance. They are not a major problem in most places.

Because diversity is generally a good thing in nature the marrow family has gone to a good deal of trouble to ensure cross-pollination. What they do is produce male and female flowers. This greatly increases the chance that the pollen that reaches an ovule is from a different plant. Bees when they are working generally work the same kind of plant so that on a particular day a particular bee will be on Brassicas and will completely ignore the marrows and a different bee will be on marrows. This is useful to plants because they get mostly their own kind of pollen left on them. I suppose it is useful to bees too but I don’t know why.

As a rule (which is sometimes broken) plants with the same Latin name can cross with each other and plants that have different Latin names cannot. A good gardening book and some seed catalogues will tell you the Latin name.

Hybrid seeds are produced when pollen from one true breeding variety is introduced to the ovules of another variety. These crosses are more difficult to produce in the home garden but often produce vigorous plants with the best qualities of both. They are possible but not really practical on a home seed saver scale and so I’m not going to go into them.

Seed saving of Peas & Beans
Seed saving of Brassicas
Seed saving of Tomatoes
Seed saving of Lettuce
Seed saving of Cucurbita
Seed Saving of onions and leeks
Seed saving of Potatoes