Seed Saving
Today Tess from Crafty Gatherer came to talk to us about seed saving – why and how we do it. We learned that 75% of the world’s seed varieties have been lost, so it's really important to preserve what we have left, to keep lots of variety and vigour in our plants. Tess showed us several ways of gathering seeds – one was soaking ‘wet’ seeds (those that come from inside fruits and veggies like pumpkins and tomatoes, where they are damp inside the fruit) and letting them ferment in water for a few days before drying them. With seeds that have dried on the plant, like flower seeds, broccoli and beans, we need to release the seeds out of their pods. One way to do this is by rubbing the pods in between our fingers, another is stamping on the dried out plants (a good way to keep fit at the same time). We then took what we’d crushed and shook it in a special layered sieve so the smaller seeds fell through the grid leaving the chaff behind. It was a really fun and engaging talk and we’re looking forward to putting lots of these techniques into practice over the coming weeks.
Thank you so much for your time, Tess!
Soaking ‘wet’ seeds.
Stomping ‘dry’ seeds.
Sieving the seeds from the chaff.
