Seed Exchange and Swapping Resources

In addition to learning about saving seeds, I have been doing some research into seed exchanges.  I have never used a seed exchange, mostly because I have never saved seeds before.  For traditional seed exchanges, you obviously need to have seeds, either saved or leftovers after planting, for the purpose of trading.  The idea is intriguing, but I'm not sure I'll be doing this any time soon.  I would however love to hear from you if you have made purchases or swaps using any of these resources listed below. 

Aunt Martha's Garden Heirloom Seed Company

Offers hundreds of varieties of heirloom seeds.  I found it interesting that they include in their online catalog seeds for "seed saving" plant varieties like beans, cucumbers, eggplant and tomatoes.

Heirloom Seed Swap

Calling themselves the The Free Seed Exchange, HeirloomSeedSwap.com doesn't charge for you to trade your seeds, offer them for free or offer them for sale.  The site is brought to you by the hosts of the Self-Sufficient Homestead Show, Johnny MAX and the Queen. They also have a Facebook page.  BONUS: Go to the bottom of the page for a link to Jack Rowe's FREE online book Vegetable Seed Saving Handbook.

iVillage GardenWeb Seed Exchange

This seed exchange provides a place where users can offer seeds for trade and make requests for seeds they are seeking. Items for sale are not permitted. Please read the special instructions for the exchange and the more general Forum Instructions before signing up and posting.  Note there are also plant exchange and seed saving forums at GardenWeb as well.

National Gardening Association

Visit their dedicated seed swap page using the link above, which is a free forum where you can find the seeds you've been looking for or share your excess seeds with others. Traditional swaps are a 2-way trade and the interested parties will contact you by phone or email. Even if you don't have any seeds to offer, you might still find someone willing to help you out with your request.

Seed Savers Exchange

Founded in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange is a membership organization.  They publish the Seed Savers Yearbook that makes available to members the seeds of more than 13,876 unique varieties of vegetables, fruits, and grains. Each year members offer nearly twice as many vegetable varieties as are available from all of the mail-order seed catalogs in both the U.S. and Canada.

Here is a short video that explains a bit more about the Seed Savers Exchange:




The Old Farmer's Almanac Seed Swap

This is a forum at The Old Farmer's Almanac website set up specifically for seed swapping. If you've been searching for an elusive variety of vegetable or flower or have seeds to share, it's the place for you!   To use the forum, you'll need to read and agree to the Seed Swap rules as well as register in order to post.  

 

 

 

Related articles

• Getting Started Saving Seeds (theseatedgardener.com)
• Harvest Spotlight: Pizza My Heart Peppers (theseatedgardener.com)

Getting Started Saving Seeds

Now that I know that the Pizza My Heart container peppers won't be available from Renee's Garden during the upcoming year due to crop failures, I have started looking in earnest for information about saving seeds from my garden.

Fortunately for me, I still have peppers coming ripe on the plants in my garden and probably will until a real cold snap hits.  That might not be for a few months yet here in Los Angeles!

While home gardeners have traditionally saved seeds from their gardens, there are some rules you need to follow to do so successfully.  The main ones are:

1. Knowing that saving seeds from F 1 hybrid plants will probably not result in the same plant.
2. Keeping different types of the same crop separated from each other so that there is no cross-breeding. 

Know Your Hybrid Plants

When you intentionally cross two inbred plants together you get a hybrid.  Commercial seed growers do this because the resulting seeds produce plants that are more vigorous and disease resistant with fruits that are more uniform.

The seeds these hybrids plants produce will not be the same seed you planted in the ground however.  Because of how genetics works, the seeds from hybrid plants can produce plants that look like the "mother" plant, the "father" plant or a combination of the two.  There is no way to predicted just from looking at the seeds what you will get when you plant them.

So if the plants you started from seed say F 1 hybrid on the package, chances are you'll be disappointed with the crop you will grow from these seeds you save from these plants.  To get the plants you want, you'll need to keep purchasing the seeds from the person who owns the parent plants.

Interesting Fact:  Most corn seed you buy is F 1 hybrid seed.

Make Them Keep Their Distance

There are several ways that plants get their seeds pollinated, from self-pollination (tomatoes) and insects (peppers), to air-borne pollination (corn).  Then there are the biennial plants, which do not produce seed stalks and seeds until a second growing season.  Onions are an example of a biennial plant.

The best bet for saving seeds are saving ones from plants that are self-pollinators.

My Pizza My Heart peppers are pollinated by insects, so for successful seed saving I needed to plant them 1/4 mile away from other peppers.  Needless to say, I didn't do that.

Air-borne pollinated corn, on the other hand, needs to be planted 1 mile away from other corn crops.

Even though I wasn't able to follow these pollination guidelines, I am still going to try and save the pepper seeds anyway.  Which means I might wind up with seeds crossed with the Baby Bell Mini Salad Peppers, regular green bell peppers or Tam mild jalapenos I also planted.

But at this point, if I want a chance at getting Pizza My Heart peppers in my garden next year, this is my only option.

There is more to seed saving that just these basics.  I got the information I shared with you today from the Colorado State University Extension website.  They have a complete list of all the garden vegetables that are self-pollinators, insect pollinated, air-borne pollinated and biennials.  Look at the top of their page for the handy Print This Fact Sheet link and you can save it to your computer as a paperless PDF file.

 

 

 

Related articles

• Harvest Spotlight: Pizza My Heart Peppers (theseatedgardener.com)