ABQ-BERNCO Seed Library
Seed Saving Resources
Seed Saving Resources
A few downloadable resources on Seed Saving:
Seed Saving Links
Seed Savers Exchange's Vegetable Planting and Seed Saving
Seed Savers Exchange's Webinar Series
Native Seeds/ SEARCH's Seed Saving Instructions
Seed Saving Basics
Seed Saving Basics
Seed saving is an ancient and important skill. It allows us to develop stronger seeds that are better adapted to our high desert climate, increase seed diversity, and play a vital role in local food production.
New to Seed Saving? Start with seeds that are labeled "easy." These seeds will have a green star on the label. These seeds are easier to save for beginners and produce plants like the ones you planted.
- beans, lettuce, peas, peppers, tomatoes
Seeds that require an intermediate level of difficulty have a yellow star on the label.
- Corn, cucumber, muskmelons, radishes, pumpkin, spinach, squash
The most challenging seeds have a red star on the label.
- Beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chard, kale, leeks, onion, radicchio, turnips
See our book recommendations for more tips. Once you start saving seeds, you will likely not need to save seeds from each crop you grow each year. One plant can yield hundreds of seeds to save and share if harvested and stored properly.
Book Gallery
The Seed Garden
Filled with advice for the home gardener and the more seasoned horticulturist alike, provides straightforward instruction on collecting seed that is true-to-type and ready for sowing in next year's garden. Brings together decades of knowledge to demystify the time-honored tradition of saving the seed of more than seventy-five coveted vegetable and herb crops--from heirloom tomatoes and long-favored varieties of beans, lettuces, and cabbages to centuries-old varieties of peppers and grains.
Saving Vegetable Seeds
This guide covers everything you need to know to successfully save seeds from 20 popular garden vegetables, including beans, carrots, peas, peppers, and tomatoes. Learn how each plant is pollinated, where to store your collected seeds through the winter, and how to test their replanting viability in the spring. Now you can grow the delicious varieties you love year after year.
The Manual of Seed Saving
Growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs from seed has many benefits for both the gardener and the planet. Why save seeds when you can buy them so cheap? Not only does seed saving allow you to grow a diverse, organic array of fruits and vegetables, it also offers an opportunity to work closely with nature and be even more hands-on with the food you grow, cook, and eat. The Manual of Seed Saving features information on how to maximize seed quality and yield for crop plants like asparagus, carrots, corn, rhubarb, spinach, squash, and tomatoes. Plant profiles include critical information on pollination, isolation distances, cultivation, harvest, storage, and pests and diseases.
Seedswap
An illustrated introduction to saving seeds--how to harvest seeds from your own garden, set up a seed library to share with your community, and grow plants from your own seed stash. With a directory of plants and easy-to-follow instructions, this is the perfect book for first-time gardeners. In an exciting introduction to the global seed-swapping movement, passionate seed activist Josie Jeffery explores why we should care about our plant heritage and, most importantly, explains how to do it. The work of seed activist individuals and groups is highlighted with inspirational tips and tales, and there is insight into the practices of major seed companies and how this has affected seed diversity, as well as how "seed breeding" affects the future of plants. The work of seed collections and seed banks is explored, and advice is given on how to collect, clean, store, preserve, and raise seeds. The second part of the book contains an extensive plant directory, which is full of advice on how to grow plants from "seed to seed."
Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste
The Brown Goose, the White Case Knife, Ora's Speckled Bean, Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter -- these are just a few of the heirloom fruits and vegetables you'll encounter in Bill Best's remarkable history of seed saving and the people who preserve both unique flavors and the Appalachian culture associated with them. As one of the people at the forefront of seed saving and trading for over fifty years, Best has helped preserve numerous varieties of beans, tomatoes, corn, squashes, and other fruits and vegetables, along with the family stories and experiences that are a fundamental part of this world. While corporate agriculture privileges a few flavorless but hardy varieties of daily vegetables, seed savers have worked tirelessly to preserve genetic diversity and the flavors rooted in the Southern Appalachian Mountains -- referred to by plant scientists as one of the vegetative wonders of the world. Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste will introduce readers to the cultural traditions as the remarkable people who have used grafting practices and hand-by-hand trading to keep alive varieties that would otherwise have been lost.
Seeing Seeds
What is inside a seed? How does it all work? Why do some seeds, pods, and fruits have such strange shapes? The answers to these and many more questions can be found in the pages of Seeing Seeds. Stunning photographs illuminating essays open up a world of beauty and fascinating information that will forever change the way you look at these small miracles of nature.
Gardening with Heirloom Seeds
Heirloom seeds living antiques handed down from one generation to the next, a rich inheritance of flavor and beauty from long ago and, often, far away. They are sometimes better adapted to pests and harsh conditions than many modern varieties and often simply smell or taste better. In these beautifully illustrated pages, Lynn Coulter describes fifty treasured heirloom species, from Frenchman's Darling, a flowering herb whose seeds were pocketed by Napoleon Bonaparte when he invaded Egypt in 1798, to Snow White beets, an old Dutch favorite that will not stain the cook's fingers red. Most of the plants included here will grow all across the United States; a few are best suited for warmer climates. The text is sprinkled throughout with practical advice from heirloom gardeners and lists sources for finding the seeds of many old varieties.
Plants from Pits
What do avocados, apples, mangos and tomatoes have in common? The answer is that they can all be grown at home, for free, from pips that you would otherwise throw into the recycling bin. Plants from Pips shows you how to grow a range of fruit and vegetables, indoors and out, with minimum equipment and experience. This complete guide covers everything from the science of how plants grow to how to deal with pests and other problems. Find out what to grow, what to grow it in and when and where to grow it for the best results.
Books 1
Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties by
All gardeners and farmers should be plant breeders, says author Carol Deppe. Developing new vegetable varieties doesn't require a specialized education, a lot of land, or even a lot of time. It can be done on any scale. It's enjoyable. It's deeply rewarding. You can get useful new varieties much faster than you might suppose. And you can eat your mistakes.
Authoritative and easy-to-understand, Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties: The Gardener's and Farmer's Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving is the only guide to plant breeding and seed saving for the serious home gardener and the small-scale farmer or commercial grower. Discover:how to breed for a wide range of different traits (flavor, size, shape, or color; cold or heat tolerance; pest and disease resistance; and regional adaptation)how to save seed and maintain varietieshow to conduct your own variety trials and other farm- or garden-based researchhow to breed for performance under organic or sustainable growing methodsIn this one-size-fits-all world of multinational seed companies, plant patents, and biotech monopolies, more and more gardeners and farmers are recognizing that they need to "take back their seeds." They need to save more of their own seed, grow and maintain the best traditional and regional varieties, and develop more of their own unique new varieties. This book shows the way, and offers an exciting introduction to a whole new gardening adventure.
Seed to Seed by
Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds.Seed to Seed is widely acknowledged as the best guide available for home gardeners to learn effective ways to produce and store seeds on a small scale. The author has grown seed crops of every vegetable featured in the book, and has thoroughly researched and tested all of the techniques she recommends for the home garden. This newly updated and greatly expanded Second Edition includes additional information about how to start each vegetable from seed, which has turned the book into a complete growing guide. Local knowledge about seed starting techniques for each vegetable has been shared by expert gardeners from seven regions of the United States-Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast/Gulf Coast, Midwest, Southwest, Central West Coast, and Northwest.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Seed Saving and Starting by
Covers all of the essential techniques - harvesting, drying, disease and pest control, testing and germinating, and sowing.CONTENTS: Getting started with seeds. Why save seeds? A seed is born -- Harvesting and storing seeds. How to save seeds. Preparing your seeds for storage. Storing your seeds -- Germinating and sowing seeds. Germinating and testing your seeds. Scarification and stratification. Sowing seeds indoors. Sowing seeds outdoors -- When seeds become plants. Extending the growing season. Transplanting your seedlings. Protecting your plants from diseases, pests, and critters -- Building your seed future. Creating new varieties by cross breeding. Creating a gardening journal. Sharing your knowledge -- Seed directories. The herb, spice, grain, and fruit seed directory. The vegetable seed directory. The flower seed directory.
The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds by
Also available as an eBook. Learn how to collect, save, and cultivate the seeds from more than 300 vegetables, herbs, fruits, flowers, trees, and shrubs. It's easy, and it's fun! Authors Robert Gough and Cheryl Moore-Gough thoroughly explain every step in the seed-saving process. Descriptions of seed biology; tips on how to select plants for the best seeds; and advice on harvesting and cleaning, proper storage and care, and propagating and caring for new seedlings are all presented with clear, easy-to-follow instructions. Chapters dedicated to individual plants contain species-specific directions and detailed information. Gardeners of any experience level will find all the information they need to extend the life of their favorite plants to the next generation and beyond.
Heirloom Vegetable Gardening by
"This book is sure to be a modern classic and is one of the most important books on gardening in the current century." --Jere Gettle, founder, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Heirloom Vegetable Gardening has always been a book for gardeners and cooks interested in unique flavors, colors, and history in their produce. This updated edition has been improved throughout with growing zones, advice, and new plant entries. Line art has been replaced with lush, full-color photography. Yet at the core, this book delivers on the same promise it made two decades ago: It's a comprehensive guide based on meticulous first-person research to these 300+ plants, making it a book to come back to season after season.
ISBN: 9780760359921
The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables : The 100 Easiest-to-Grow, Tastiest Vegetables for Your Garden by
Are heirloom vegetables more difficult to grow than conventional hybrids? The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables debunks this myth by highlighting the 100 heirloom vegetables that are the easiest to grow and the tastiest to eat. Marie Iannotti makes it simple for beginning gardeners to jump on the heirloom trend by presenting an edited list based on years of gardening trial and error.Her plant criteria is threefold: The 100 plants must be amazing to eat, bring something unique to the table, and - most importantly - they have to be unfussy and easy to grow. Her list includes garden favorites like the meaty and mellow 'Lacinato' Kale, the underused and earthy 'Turkish Orange' Eggplant, and the unexpected sweetness of 'Apollo' Arugula. Plant profiles include color photographs, flavor notes, and growing tips - everything beginning gardeners need to successfully grow a variety of heirloom vegetables.
Plant Propagation by
Expert Guidance On The Propagation Of More Than 1,500 Plants. Whether you want to increase your plants by the easiest or most reliable methods of propagation, or experiment with more unusual or advanced techniques, or use specialized techniques for a favorite plant group, AHS Plant Propagation contains all the techniques you need in easy-to-follow, step-by-step explanations.
