Learn the Seedsaving Secret That Makes Gardening Easier

[Music] welcome back I was waiting for it to stop raining it's been raining for almost two weeks waiting for it to stop raining so I could Harvest these radish seeds we got multiple varieties of large daikon radishes that we liked and I let them all intercross and they have gone to seed and they're giving us thousands and thousands and thousands of seeds here and now I'm finally winnowing out some of the seeds here to save so today's video I'm going to talk to you about the secret powers you can unlock when you save your own seeds from the garden [Music] what you might expect to hear about seed saving is you know you should save your own seeds because it's Thrifty you could save money save your own seeds well yeah that's true but I can get enough radish seeds to plant more radishes than I would ever want to eat for about two dollars so thriftiness is not really the the first reason for saving seeds maybe if you're really you know like to think that way and you really really want to save money yeah yeah you could get heirloom varieties and you could learn to save the seeds from them and you could have your own Savings of 15 16 25 a year or something like that that could be and if you had rare varieties it might make a lot of sense there's some things that are very hard to get maybe you get some rare plant on Etsy and you save the seeds that could happen but there is something that you could save even more than money it's not about thriftiness it's about laziness laziness in a good way as in you may not have to work as hard at your gardening if you save your own seeds now how could this be the case if I buy seeds for two dollars or if I save seeds and I plant again the next year well there's a man named Joseph lofthouse and I had a very good interview with him recently and I had been moving along the lines of saving my own seeds and growing my own plants and testing different varieties for a very long time I was saving seeds for pumpkin varieties that I liked and crossing different seminal pumpkin lines together and and and so I was I was kind of in this Zone but I was basically just trying to get a vigorous line of seminal pumpkins and I hadn't really expanded to all the other plants in my garden that I could do this with but Joseph lofthouse wrote this book called land race gardening land race gardening tells you plant a whole bunch of different varieties so for this case daikon radishes I had a whole bunch of different varieties let them all cross up save seeds do this for a few years and the best winners survivors your favorites Etc then are now bred for survival in your climate because sea lions don't necessarily come from your climate you can get seeds from up North you get seeds from down south where are you and where were those seeds grown are they adapted to your clay soil are they adapted to your temperate climate are they more adapted to a tropical climate are they adapted to Spring growing or fall growing or long season growing or daylight or blah blah blah blah blah all these different things so what do you do to get them to adapt to your climate you plant a bunch of varieties you let all those genetics recombine again and then the ones that survive and thrive in your backyard you save seeds from those they've picked up new genetics and the genetics start to then lock in and fit your climate and your backyard so that's what we're doing and I'm starting by showing you these daikons but let's move on and take a look at our core corn crosses ridiculously it is air pollinated it spreads all over the place so if you have two different varieties of corn growing next to each other and they're tasseling out at the same time you are going to get all kinds of crosses you'll get different kernels in all the corn I want a green corn that is better adapted to this area because we get a lot of rain it doesn't necessarily dry down well we have various pest pressures but I grew corn that was adapted to the Caribbean down in the Caribbean that would always give me corn whether it was rainy or dry I haven't found a corn like that here so we are growing our own so we got all kinds of Indian grain corns and varieties that were bred by settlers varieties from Mexico all kinds of varieties all crushed probably about 25 varieties all interplanted I actually have to thin them out now I over planted a little bit and then I thin and this will then cross up and all of these genetics then are going to be combined we will plant seeds again and what grows the best out of that we save now we've bred for survival that's the first step breed for survival the stuff that looks good and grows great in your climate after a couple of Seasons that's what you want to keep planting but then from there you can start selecting for oh do you want this color grain or do you like this flavor or do you like this height or this particular attribute does it make multiple ears does it make single ears what are you gonna do with that how fast does it produce that sort of thing so you can breed back again to your climate if there's not something that's specifically a corn that was bred for your region you can make your own and you can do this with a lot of things like pumpkins these pumpkins behind me a mix of cucabita machatas we mixed up seminal pumpkins and Cherokee tan pumpkins and who knows what else just every variety that I could find uh from Baker Creek and from friends and anybody that sent me a cooker beater Machado I mixed them all up in a big jar shook them up and whichever ones Thrive and make pumpkins that taste good we saved the pumpkins that is super easy and they're adapted to the area we've even had pumpkins that have come back in the compost year after year when we did this with seminal pumpkins back before we lost that seed line we had a seed line that ran for multiple years in North Central Florida and they just produced and they produced they produced and we would just throw some of the old pumpkins the guts of the pumpkins and the orions into the compost and they would regrow themselves every year and just cover the backyard that's the kind of gardening I like I don't like to have to really work at it here we just have the pigs clear the area we pinned them up here they cleared the whole area they shredded it all down to the ground we made little mountains put a little compost out watered once and maybe twice three times if I saw it when I would pass the pigs I watered it but I haven't watered it for probably a month or so and here they are running and they're starting to make pumpkins that's an easy one another one that we've had great success with so far even though we've had some difficult soil and difficult years our watermelons my son has been breeding his own land race watermelons by going to the seed rack getting a bunch of varieties looking over my shoulder when I'm shopping online for seeds can you get a couple watermelons can you throw a couple watermelons in here's seven bucks can we get those three packets of watermelon seeds Etc and adding watermelon varieties together and then just putting them into these death marches like no water very little weeding very little fertilizing and seeing what happens I planted some of his land race watermelons here in the grocery rows and they're thriving this is the first watermelon coming out these watermelons are growing like weeds All Over the Garden because For the First Time in their lives they've ever been taken care of for the first time in Generations there is more Vigor I am convinced in these watermelons because all those jeans crossed the weak ones died the ones that made Fruit despite adverse conditions had the genetics to thrive in the yard and they did better and the Next Generation do better because they have adapted so there are red ones and there was tiny ones and large ones and orange ones and white ones and yellow ones and we just mixed all these different varieties together planted them all over the place and this is on the third year it's actually five years that he's been saving watermelon seeds from year to year but three years inside of the United States and we were not able to carry his old seed lines in unfortunately because of you know the regulations of going across borders Etc so we started again 20 25 different varieties of watermelons and added five or ten more the next year and we are now getting watermelons that are quite vigorous and over time this is going to stabilize into a land race and we know first of all we've bred for survival and then we will save the ones that we like to eat the most and this is the magic of saving your own seeds this is what you don't normally hear you hear about how it's Thrifty or how it makes sense to grow heirlooms no you got heirlooms you got hybrids I don't care what you got mix them all together let them all cross you can learn about your inbreeding and outbreeding and all that stuff later like Suzanne ashworth's seed to seed we'll tell you about that but generally mix them all up let them all cross save the seeds and you get more vigorous plants there is a lettuce in my daughter's Garden right now which is a variety that was saved year after year by one of our viewers her name is Raven and she saved this and it's like Amazing Grace Miracle lettuce you know because year after year it almost died she barely saved it they moved it almost died you know and now this is a really rich green vigorous lettuce because it has been through tough times and it has learned how to overcome it is not a hot house lettuce saved in a different climate and very very protected beautiful conditions over time no it is a rough and tough lettuce that is a backyard Scrappy lettuce that lived when the other lettuces died and it makes a big difference and you can unlock This Magic by taking all the genetics you can get taking all these little inbred heirloom seedlines all these heavily inbred lines that have lost a lot of their Vigor mixing them all together getting this wide range of genetics throwing it at the backyard just like you would pour that big slab of resin over some rough wood and let it settle into all the cracks Suddenly It's going to settle in and it's going to fit your yard and after a few seasons you've got some crazy vigorous stuff so that's why I am much more excited about seed saving than I have ever been because we're starting to see the results of vigorous interesting crosses we're even saving our own potato seeds now and we're going to be working with those next year in the spring when it's very early and cool and we can plant them so that's what I want you to do I want you to go out and try it and save your own seed lines for that sake and yes it's good to know how to save seeds and save a little money and yes if there was a horrible supply line collapse and everything else you would want to know how to save your own seeds but even better than that you can save seeds that will grow plants that make your gardening easier because they are adapted to your own backyard keep that in your head this is this is like groundbreaking eye opening and this is the way we saved seeds for many thousands of years before the big companies took it over and you can do that again if you like something plant the seeds whatever lives save the seeds grow the seeds again the seeds come to like you and your backyard and you like them and you have a beautiful relationship and it works much better and it's exciting to see what you're going to get if you want to learn more about Joseph lofthouse and his work check out his book land race gardening I will put a link below it is a must read it is a five green thumbs book land race gardening if you want to learn more about my grocery row Gardening System here you can check out the little booklet on how we do our crazy mixed up beautiful gardens and you can do it too thanks for joining me until next time make your thumbs always be green discover y go gardening backyard where fruits herbs vegetables and flowers all grow together within proper spacing and grocery row gardening you'll find the tools and systems you need to keep your family fed [Music] thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: David The Good

Views: 50,712

Keywords: gardening, composting, David The Good, tropical gardening, seed saving, saving seeds, how to save seeds, how to save seed, how to save seeds from vegetables, saving seed, heirloom seeds, joseph lofthouse, landrace gardening, landrace, easy gardening

Id: Ew45QlGdn4Q

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023