The Creston Valley Food Action Coalition (CVFAC) and the Kootenay Local Agricultural Society (KLAS) have embarked on a program to save vegetable, grain, and herb seeds in the Kootenays. We believe that saving seeds is an essential part of growing, eating, and sharing local food. If you decide to do this, you will be carrying on a very long tradition of saving seeds, and at the same time you will save money and know exactly how your seed plants were grown. Besides that, it is simply fun to do!
Eventually, we intend to design a seed crop strategy for the Kootenays so that we can have a variety of seeds that would provide a diverse range of good local food. This way, we can still have food even when world disorder, climate change, economic downturns, and other factors inhibit our ability to import food to our region. In the meantime, we have set up a Seed Registry for seed growers. This is a very simple process – you simply fill out a form stating the varieties of seeds you have grown, for how long, and your name and contact information. Then just send it in to KLAS or CVFAC. (For now, use the contact form available here on the site.)
During 2012, we will be posting a series of blogs on this website written by Pat Huet. They will cover topics such as: why we should save seeds, how plants produce seeds, a run-down of the types of plants you can grow to get seeds from, and things like harvesting, cleaning, and storing seeds. We hope you will get the “seed saving bug” and join us!
For all our blog posts about saving seeds, click here .