The following resources and guidelines should help answer basic questions and are a requirement for members wishing to receive credit for sending their saved seeds back to the library. Check back in early spring for seed-saving instructions for specific varieties.
1. As a member you will receive our monthly e-journal “Garden Notes for Seedy Folks.” The email will include timely seed saving tips that will help keep you on track during the growing season and let you know what characteristics we are selecting for this year.
2. Save seed from the best! Choose the healthiest plants that display the most important characteristics of the plant being grown.
3. Return the best seeds! Do your best to separate chaff from your seeds. Then inspect your seeds carefully. Do they look like the seeds you planted at the beginning of the season? We will be posting Seed Shots on the website later in the growing season if you need to compare. Any seeds that look odd in any way should be discarded.
4. Check out our blog on the Seed Library home page. Our goal is to document what we are doing on the farm to pass the skills we are developing onto home gardeners.
5. If you are on Facebook.com please consider joining our group Hudson Valley Seed Library. It’s a place to post questions, and answers, for other gardeners participating in saving seed for the library. Unfortunately, we cannot respond to individual emails with garden questions during the growing season; we’re just too busy farming! We will keep an eye on the wall-to-wall discussions on Facebook and try and answer the group’s unanswered gardening questions.
6. Go to your local library and check out a book on seed saving. Pick your favorite and consider buying a copy to keep on hand. We recommend Seed to Seed, by Suzanne Ashworth. But there are many excellent seed saving books out there.
7. Your Garden Packs will be marked as beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Beginner seeds may be returned be gardeners of any skill level. Intermediate seeds require reviewing specific instructions on our website. Advanced seeds require taking one of our workshops or emailing us if you feel you already posses the necessary seed saving skills.
8. Come to one of our hands-on seed-saving workshops. If we’re not doing one in your area invite us to come up!