Collecting seeds in the fall garden is both useful and super fun for kids. Shelling beans is one of our favorite fall activities- crinkly seed pods make all kinds of interesting noises and provide free seed for next year. Seed saving is both one of the last tasks before the garden goes to bed, and a promise of next years growth. It’s the end of one cycle and the start of the next one. Sometimes I hand draw fancy seed packets- sometimes I stuff seeds in random unlabeled bags and forget about them. My Farm to Flight unit study includes a printable seed packet with a space to tell the story of your seeds— was it the biggest juiciest pepper? Was it a gift from your grandma? The stories of different plant varieties is part of what makes them special and are worth preserving along with your seeds!
If you haven’t tried saving seed before it’s generally pretty straightforward– although some seeds are fiddler than others. Seeds generally fall into two categories- dry seeds that you can just collect and save and wet seeds (think tomatoes) that need to soak in water for a few days before being dried out. Collect some seeds from your favorite plants this fall!
[…] Seed Saving […]