SEASON OF SEED SAVING SECOND WEEK OF APRIL 2024

Ever since Buddha Garden started we have saved our own seed and I am often asked why we do this. In the beginning it was through necessity as it was very difficult to get open pollinated non hybrid organic seeds that weren't covered in insecticides and preservatives.  Over time, however, we have come to see that saving our own seed improves what we grow as well as helping us be more resilient.  The seeds we collect produce plants that eventually adapt to our growing environment and over time learn to resist the pests we have in Buddha Garden.  Being open pollinated the seeds produce diverse plants which will usually produce something whatever the weather conditions. Which is very important as the climate gets increasingly erratic. We also found that having our own seeds when our nursery was blown down by a cyclone (in 2012) meant that we were able to be up and running very quickly afterwards. Using seeds from our seed store, rather than having to rely on finding somewhere to buy them.

The hot weather we are presently having is good for seed drying and I often find myself doing a lot of seed saving processes during this time of the year. Last week I have been processing a lot of long beans. Originally called 'Australian beans', as the first seeds came from an Aurovilian farmer from Australia, we have grown these beans since Buddha Garden started 24 years ago. They are very heat tolerant and grow well for most of the year. Although they don't like the monsoon so much and tend to grow mold and get attacked by insects at that time.

We have a seed garden and at the moment have one bed of beans which we are growing there just for the seed. This means that all the energy of the plant will be used for seed growing and we will also try to allow the beans to ripen completely on the plant before picking them and drying them. But only of course if the animals allow it - for many squirrels our beans seeds seem to be a gourmet item. Grown like this these are usually very good seed with a high germination rate that grow into healthy plants.

As with many vegetables these beans are picked and eaten before the seeds get ripe. As once the beans have started to ripen too much, customers do not want to buy them.

For all vegetables it is therefore important to know when is the best picking time both for eating and for seed saving. If you want to save seed, you need to find out how the seeds ripen. Whether they need to stay on the plant or can be picked once they are starting to get ripe and can finish ripening off somewhere else.

In this week's hot weather the ripening process can be very quick. It is not unusual this time of year for the beans to get over ripe (in terms of eating them) overnight.

The long bean in the picture on the left is just starting to get ripe as the outside of the pod is starting to go pale and the beans inside the pod can be seen and felt. We pick these sort of beans to put them out in the sun for further ripening.

Ladies finger, on the other hand, have seeds that will not ripen unless they are left on the plant. The pods go very brown and hard along with the white seeds. Only then can they be picked and saved.

Vegetable plants vary a lot in what is required in terms of the conditions for ripening the seed. To save vegetable seeds successfully this needs to be understood. As seeds that are not ripe enough will not germinate well/grow into healthy plants.

Once all the ripening beans have been picked I put them in these seed trays out in the sun.

I used to take the lid off during the day as I felt that they dried better. But if I forgot to put the lid back on overnight there were rarely any beans left in the morning. Every one would have been eaten by various animals that we have in Buddha Garden. So now I leave the tray lid on all the time. Once the pods go brown they then go in our seed cupboard in the kitchen for a final drying.

Once the pods are completely dry the ripe beans can be removed from the pods and then put back on the tray for a final drying. The last job is to sort the seeds and then put them in labelled bags. They are then put into the seed fridge until they need to be used.

For a long time we did not have a seed fridge and so we mixed ash in with the seeds to keep any pests away. This wasn't 100% successful especially with snake gourd seeds. We have found that the seeds keep much more successfully in the fridge.