If you are any kind of gardener, I bet you have a drawer filled with half-empty packets of vegetable and herb seeds. It is easy to get stuck in a cycle of buying new seeds each growing season because you have forgotten you already had some, or you are not sure what is out of date. We all do it, but it is possible to break the habit – and now is the time.
Collecting your own seeds makes sense in many ways. You save money. You avoid all the embodied energy in bought seeds: the transportation, the colour printing, those silver foil packs that can’t be recycled. As long as you dry your seeds properly, so they will store well, you might also find you get much better germination because they are fresh. You will also have something to barter with. If you didn’t get the hang of saving chilli seeds, say, but have plenty of lettuce (and a single lettuce can produce more than 10,000 seeds), there will be a gardener somewhere who is willing to swap. Look out for local Seedy Sunday events, where seed savers come together in late winter or spring to do just that.
