It’s that time of year, when we’re all buying seeds, and I just want to put a plug in for reading the labels. Seed saving is something I only came to a few years into keeping a garden, and I pretty much just save tomato seeds at this point, but with Monsanto being investigated for monopolizing seed stocks, it seems that seed saving is one place that backyard gardeners can really have an impact.

But the thing is, you can’t save seeds from hybrid varieties. So when you’re perusing the seed racks at your local garden stores, if it’s something relatively easy to save yourself, like tomato or squash or herbs, you’d do well to check the package. Seed Savers Exchange is a great source of heirloom varieties that individual gardeners have saved themselves, and they’ve got some good info on how to save your own seeds as well. Personally, I find that half the fun of having a backyard garden is growing things I can’t buy in the store. For the last few years it’s been interesting Italian greens and veggies from Seeds of Italy, and this year I’m experimenting with Asian greens I got from Evergreen Seeds. I mean, why grow the same old commercial hybrids that you can buy at the grocery store, when you can grow red bunching onions, or Rapa da Foglia senza Testa(one of my very favorite discoveries).?

Look, even Stephen Colbert is on to the awesome power of the non-hybrid seed stocks:

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Survival Seed Bank
www.colbertnation.com
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