Seed Saving and Seed Saving Methods by Ed Powers

Seeds

Tempting though it may be to ignore everything else but the delicious flavor of our home produce, it is important to bear in mind that all living things – which means, to a greater or lesser extent, pretty much all of our food – follow a cycle in their growth patterns. With crops which are annuals, such as most commercial crops and many salads and vegetables, if we harvest the food but not the seed we are breaking this cycle. 

In order to create an even more efficient system, we can harvest the seeds from our vegetable plots and re-seed them next year, ensuring prolonged biodiversity and more economically liable growing for us, as we don’t have to keep buying seeds. 

When you save seeds for planting and legacy from year to year you should plant only heirloom seeds. There are some useful resources out there to help decide which vegetables will be most successful.  I have researched many sources including universities.   Here are some tips on seed saving from experienced gardeners and knowledgeable  individuals and organizations.

However tempting it might be to fill your garden with a blossoming diversity of different types of vegetables, in terms of actually being able to save that diversity for coming generations it may be more helpful to grow just one variety of each different crop at a time. 

Welcome New Jefferson County Master Gardeners! by Donna Duffy

Back row: Barb Donahue,  Jack Mellon, Kelli Marko, Mariska Hamstra, Keith Rabin. Front row: Lorrie Redman, Lynn Leventhal, Michelle Loudis, Cherie Luke, Dustin Foster. Not pictured: Audrey Stokes, Brooke Colburn.

On January 15th, twelve individuals were honored as Jefferson County’s newest Master Gardeners. To earn this designation, they went through a comprehensive application process and interview through Jefferson County CSU Extension. Once accepted as an apprentice, these dedicated volunteers completed a minimum of 60 hours of college-level classroom instruction (including lectures, small group activities, and lab activities) focused on home gardening. On top of that, each volunteer contributed at least 50 hours of service in 2014. 

Brown Needles on Pines May be Due to November's Cold Snap by Mary Small

Photo by CJ Clawson

We are starting to see the first damage to plants caused by the unseasonably cold weather in November. Many evergreens, particularly pine, are now showing injury from the rapid and sustained drop in temperature. Needles are turning a straw to red brown color, depending on the species and location.  Warmer, southern sides of trees are especially hard hit, since those areas had not yet developed complete winter hardiness. 

Photo by  CJ Clawson

Plants develop the ability to withstand cold winter temperatures in response to decreasing daylight and other signals. One of the signals includes exposure to gradually decreasing temperatures. And November’s cold spell was anything but gradual. We descended from early fall temperatures into mid January ones! The temperature dropped 50 degrees in a few hours.

 What can be done now? Water all evergreen root systems monthly in the absence of rainfall or snowmelt.  It won’t reverse the process – the brown needles won’t turn green again- but it will keep healthier portions of the plant hydrated. 

It will likely be mid-spring 2015 before we can begin to assess the true damage from the cold. And like a similar Halloween freeze of 1991, injury may continue to appear for a couple of years. 

Starting Seeds Indoors by Donna Duffy

Photo courtesy gardeningknowhow.com

Starting seeds indoors gives you earlier vegetables and flowers, and your cultivar choices will be endless. Relax, the  task of seed planting is reassuringly simple. Just take it step-by-step, and you’ll soon be marveling over a healthy crop of seedlings. Planttalk Colorado offers the following tips for successful seed starting.

What are Seed Libraries and why do we need them? by Ed Powers

mountainwise.org

A seed library is a depository of seeds where seeds are leant or shared with its members. It is distinguished from a seed bank in that the main purpose is not to store or hold germplasm or seeds against possible destruction, but to disseminate them to the public which preserves the shared plant varieties through propagation and further sharing of seed. 

Members come to the library and borrow seed for their garden.  They grow the plants in their garden and at the end of the season; they let a few plants ‘go to seed.’  From those plants, they collect seeds and return the same amount of seed (or more) as they borrowed at the beginning of the growing season.  Seeds are free to members.

The library is both a collection of seeds and a community of gardeners.  Since seed is a living thing, it must be renewed each year somewhere by someone or unique varietals can become extinct.  Even growing one seed and returning it to the library is a valuable contribution.  Seed Libraries may also operate as pure charity operations intent on serving gardeners and farmers.

A common attribute of many seed libraries is to preserve agricultural biodiversity. by focusing on rare, local, and heirloom seed varieties.

Seed libraries use varied methods for sharing seeds, primarily by:

1. Seed swaps otherwise known as seed exchanges, in which library members or the public meet and exchange seeds.
2. Seed "lending," in which people check out seed from the library's collection, grow them, save the seed, and return seed from the propagated plants to the library.
   
   

Christmas Tree Recycling by Donna Duffy

That lovely, fragrant cut tree you bought weeks ago has probably seen better days by now. It’s time to get it out of the house! Following are some options for recycling the tree once you’ve removed all of the decorations and tinsel. One caution: don’t burn the tree in your fireplace – the pitch content in the bark and needles can cause them to burst into flames from the intense heat.