Seed Saving

With all of the produce we've come across, be it from our own garden, our neighbors, or from the heirloom expo, we've begun saving seeds of the best fruits, veggies and herb.

Most of the seeds have been taken out of the fruit/veggie, rinsed off (if necessary - think; melon seeds) and laid out to dry.  Once dry, we wrap them up and store in a cool spot.

Can you see the white layer of mold in the jar?

David started experimenting with the tomato seeds.  He read that in order to adequately breakdown the slimy outter layer of the tomato seed (don't know the techincal term so "slimy" will have to do), you're supposed to let them sit in water and grow a layer of mold on the top - the mold will "eat" off the outer layer. This mimics nature - generally, a tomato growing in the wild will vine ripen, fall, rot, then germinate again the following spring from seed.  It would be interesting to compare how seeds harvested this way fare compared to those simply rinsed and dried. 

We cleared off a shelf in our kitchen and it's been deemed the "seed saving shelf" - there are seeds from tomatos, melons, peppers, and eggplant so far.  Seeds from cilantro, valerian, calendula, artichoke have also been harvested - but these dried on the plant. 

It pretty cool that we're able to take the seeds we've gathered from our time here and will plant them wherever we all end up next spring ... taking some of SLI and our experience with us to our next destination - quite literally!