Seeds & saving
Reading seed listings, starting seeds indoors, testing and storing seed, and saving your own.
- How long seeds last, how to store them and how to test germination at home
How long vegetable seeds stay viable, why cool and dry storage matters, the best containers, using silica gel, the paper-towel germination test step by step, and how to interpret results before you reorder from the catalog.
- How to read a seed catalog: days to maturity, hybrids, heirlooms and disease codes
A guide to understanding seed catalog listings: variety names, days to maturity, open-pollinated, F1 hybrid and heirloom seed, disease resistance codes, seed counts, treated and organic seed, germination labelling, and regional adaptation.
- Seed saving basics: which seeds to save, isolation, harvesting and drying
A beginner's guide to saving vegetable and flower seed from catalog varieties: open-pollinated versus hybrid, the easiest crops to start with, isolation distances, dry and wet harvesting, fermenting tomato seed, drying, labelling and sharing seed.
- Starting seeds indoors: timing, light, containers and hardening off
How to start vegetable and flower seeds indoors from catalog orders: when to sow by your last frost date, containers and seed-starting mix, light and temperature, watering, preventing damping off, potting up and hardening off seedlings.
