Saving Seeds

Hi everyone!

We are coming to the end of the farming season now at DTL Herbs Farm. It was an interesting season as well as a learning season for our first year actually having a farm to work with.

Besides planting, harvesting and selling our produce this year, we also made sure to do a lot of seed saving. We are specializing in all heirloom veggies (and hopefully fruit in the coming years) so, we made sure to harvest as many seeds as possible. This helps consistency from year to year.

Our dining room became seed saving central this past season. I think I might actually see our table in the near future! LOL

Did you know that there are Seed Banks all over the world? Some of the world’s largest Seed Vaults are right here in the United States!

The reasons for storing seeds may be varied. In the case of food crops, many useful plants that were developed over centuries are now no longer used for commercial agricultural production and are becoming rare. Storing seeds also guards against catastrophic events like natural disasters, outbreaks of disease, or war. Unlike seed libraries or seed swaps that encourage frequent reuse and sharing of seeds, seed banks are not typically open to the public.

Source: Wikipedia

Of course, this too has taken up the table since Spring! The dehydrator. I don’t think we have had a single day in about 3 months that this thing wasn’t running. Honest! We definitely need to get several more for next year.

We have dried a lot of various veggies this year. But, without a doubt the biggest time has been concentrated at drying our hot peppers. We have grown several of the world’s hottest peppers this season and are developing a new product. Our customers at DTL Herbs have been asking us for some hot and spicy mixes. We listened and dedicated a lot of time this year to grow these peppers in order to fill this need.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what those “sticks” are in the above picture, they are dill stems. Did you know they are filled with flavor as well as the leaves? Yup, I use them to flavor my oils and vinegars for here at home. They don’t look as pretty so, I don’t use them for products. but, for home use, they are just fine.

Do you save your seeds?