Multinational seed ownership has had a disastrous effect on the availability of hardy, native species. True, the convenience of a dry, uniform packet of seeds may be persuasive, but you can make good use of your resources by saving, with very little effort, the seeds of many garden plants; and others can be left to self-seed right where they grow.

Any drawbacks and difficulties in saving your own seed are greatly outweighed by potential benefits, not merely economic ones. As a general rule, a plant that sets seed has proved to you it can survive in your garden and is therefore worth saving. Pick out the biggest and the healthiest, and you are on the way to developing a strain that is uniquely adapted to the precise conditions of your garden. Remember, however, that your seeds must be stored in a dry and cool place.

Collecting Seed
To collect seeds successfully you need to catch them when they’re fully ripe but before they’ve been released. You may have to enclose a seed-head in a paper bag secured with an elastic band during the final ripening stage, to prevent the seeds scattering. Once collected, seeds can either be sown right away or stored somewhere dry and cool (but not below freezing) in labeled paper bags (plastic will suffocate them). Some seeds remain viable after years of storage, but others germinate best when sown immediately.

Saving Vegetable Seed
Reasons for saving vegetable seed obviously include economy, but the most important reason is the frequent difficulty of obtaining some old-fashioned varieties.
Such varieties are especially good subjects for homegrown seed, because this is how they would originally have been handled.

When planning to raise vegetable seeds, you need at least two plants of exactly the same variety in bloom at the same time. Crossing different varieties will produce hybrids, which may (and probably will) be disastrous. Another problem is that many brassicas, e.g. broccoli, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kohl-rabi, are all derived from the same wild ancestor, and they are able to interbreed just as other “varieties” can. You’ll also need to allow the very best of your crop plants to “run to seed,” in order to get the best-bred seed next year. But set against that is the advantage of being able to select the best plants to breed from, and over many generations you will obtain a strain which is best adapted to your garden‚a privilege surely worth striving for.