7 Reasons to Save Garden Seeds

7 Reasons to Save Garden Seeds
You can save money, grow better vegetables, be more self-sustaining and eco-friendly when you save seeds from your own garden. Saving garden seeds is nothing new, but it's a new concept to many novice gardens that I advise. Big box garden supply centers and even the local dollar stores have made purchasing new seeds each year easy enough, but there's still good reason to save garden seeds, 7 reasons as a matter-of-fact.

Save Money
Buy once, plant for decades. One seed purchase could potentially be an investment that will last for centuries if you also raise future gardeners in your blood line. The seed price of an expensive plant variety is easily justified when you consider how much money you will be saving by saving the seeds at the end of each growing season and re-planting them in succeeding years.

No Seed Shortage
When you save your own garden seeds, you're not at the mercy of the seed industry which may decide to discontinue your favorite tomato or squash variety. You won't have to worry about a pest infestation at holding sites that could limit the amount of specific seeds available from the seed industry either. Save your own garden seeds and you'll have what you want in the amount you need.

Plant Adaptation
When you save seeds from plants that have been grown in your region, in your own garden, you know the plant has already adapted to your region. The seed industry chooses to sell seeds that are adapted to growing in most all regions, not specifically yours. That's understandable from the money-making standpoint of a business, but for a home gardener like myself, I want seeds and plants that will grow best in my southern climate.

Quality Control
When you save your own garden seeds, you can select them off the best producing plants in your garden. The seed industry harvests seeds from inferior plants as well as premium plants and mixes them together for a hit-or-miss garden for home-growers.

Crop Traits
By saving your own seeds, you can select the seeds only from the plants that offered something special; the biggest squash, sweetest tomatoes, hottest pepper or odd-shaped eggplant and use those seeds from unique plants to influence crop traits in future gardens.

Heirlooms
Unlike modern hybrids varieties, heirloom varieties are not bred for their high yield and long shelf life, but rather for their flavor. Explore growing heirloom vegetable varieties and save seeds to keep modern gardening connected to the gardening times of our ancestors.

Have Fun
Saving garden seeds is a fun way to introduce young children to the joys of gardening. Grow, harvest and dry flower and vegetable seeds with kids this season, then plant the seeds next growing season with those kids so they can observe the circle of life and have fun doing so.
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