Early Season Seed-Saving Tips

It is imperative that we, as stewards of Earth, ensure a safe and varied seed supply to pass along to future generations."
​- Cheryl Moore-Gough

This recent cold snap has meant a lot of time spent indoors organizing my seeds and planning the garden season ahead. That’s why I’m excited to share my video with you today. In it, I interview author, former Master Gardener instructor and state of Montana Horticulture Extension Specialist Cheryl Moore-Gough, about Early Season Seed-Saving Tips. If you’re new to seed saving and have been intimidated by the prospect of saving seeds, then this video is for you.

Needless to say, one of the catalysts for doing this video is the response I've seen to the pandemic. With an increased interest in growing food, seed companies have been overwhelmed. The demand for seeds has gotten so significant that some national seed companies have had to limit their orders or have stopped selling to home gardeners altogether. While the enthusiasm for gardening is good news, it’s yet another indication of how fragile our food system truly is.

That’s why learning how to save seeds yourself is yet another step towards self-reliance and resilience.
 
Every season, each tiny seed that you hold in your hand represents the potential for generations of food. GENERATIONS.
 
Because if you continued to save the seed from those plants year after year, to cultivate varieties that do well in our cold climate, to share those seeds with your friends and neighbors and to have them do the same with different plants, then we start to move towards a truly local and resilient food system.

But seed saving can be a vast and often overwhelming topic. That's why Cheryl and I break it down for you in this video. We talk about some of the easiest and best bets when it comes to seed saving, common mistakes that first-time seed savers make, a simple test you can do to check your seed viability as well as other tips and tricks. Cheryl is a wealth of information and her book, The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds, is one of the leading books on seed saving.

So check out the video below and if you have any questions, be sure to put them in the comments below!

Cheryl Moore-Gough has a B.S. in Horticulture and M.S. in Plant Science. She has taught many classes at Montana State University including Vegetable Production, and has retired as the state of Montana Extension Horticulture Specialist and Montana Master Gardener instructor and coordinator.

​Cheryl has authored or co-authored 7 gardening books including The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds and Rocky Mountain Vegetable Gardening Guide, numerous MSU Extension yard and garden informational publications and many magazine articles.

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