Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth (19 page)

Figure 9.1. Seed Inventory

On the Seed Inventory I left a column blank. If I’ve done a germination test, I put the germination rate in that column. Otherwise, I might put the days to maturity there for that variety. I can make my seed shopping list as I do my inventory. With the columns for “don’t buy” and “DO buy”, I know just what I need. As I list each crop, I leave an extra line or two open if I know I’m going to be trying some new varieties not shown. Sometimes I look up those new varieties while I’m thinking about it as I’m doing the inventory, and sometimes I sit down with the catalogs later. Either way, there is space to put the source, amount of seeds to buy (packet, pound, etc.), and how much it will cost for anything I might need to order.

How Many Seeds?

The germination rate, how much space will be planted, and how many plants will go there, are all considerations in deciding the amount of seed you need. You can see from my worksheet, Seeds and Plants Needed (
Figure 9.2
), that you can easily make those calculations. On this worksheet, list all the crops that are planted. Use your garden map for that. Some crops are shown on your map in places where they are only harvested, having been planted the previous year. Only count them when they are planted. You might have multiple beds of the same crop. Combine the bed area on this worksheet so you know the total area that you need seed for.

Most likely, not all the seeds will germinate, so you need to determine an estimate to work with. Sometimes the germination rate is listed on the seed packet, along with the month and year the test was done. If you haven’t done a germination test yourself, and the rate is not listed on the seed packet, you could go with the established legal minimum germination rate, which you can find in the Master Charts in
How to Grow More Vegetables
. Put the germination rate you are using, expressed as a decimal, in Column A. The Master Charts are a great reference for this worksheet, since you will also find the number of seeds per ounce and suggested spacing for each crop, which are needed for Columns B and C. The spacing, “centers in inches”, is for planting in a grid pattern, with everything equally spaced. If you are planting in a different pattern, use your own figures.

Figure 9.2. Seeds and Plants Needed

Download this worksheet at
http://tinyurl.com/mf4a33r

Using equidistant (also called offset) spacing, the formula in Column D helps you figure the space each plant needs. In that formula the square inches needed (C × C) is divided by 144, the number of square inches
in a foot. If you have already put your crops on your garden map, you know how many square feet are needed for each crop and you can put that in Column E. If the plants were all lined up in straight rows, like so many boxes, you could determine the number of plants needed for that area from the number in Column D. However, with equidistant spacing, the plants are nestled together. You can see that in the expanded planting diagrams in
Figure 8.2
. Planting that way, you could get up to about 13 percent more plants in the same space. Divide E (area to plant) by D (square feet needed per plant) and multiply that by 1.13 to find the maximum number of plants you can fit in that area with equidistant spacing. Put that number in column F.

Not every plant will be an excellent specimen, and you want to put out the best, so allow for some extras. In this case 20 percent extra is allowed. Multiply F (number of plants needed) by 1.2 to find the number of plants needed with 20 percent for insurance. That means that for every ten tomato plants that have germinated and grown, you will have two extra so you can pick and choose the best. Save the extras until you know that things are going as planned in the garden after you have set those plants out. It could be that something comes along and eats them in the first week. In that case, you would need those extras. Suddenly, second best becomes the plant of choice.

To determine the number of seeds needed for that number of plants (column H), divide G (the number of plants you need with insurance) by A (the germination rate expressed as a decimal). The weight of seeds is the number of seeds needed (Column H) divided by the number of seeds per ounce (Column B). The seed catalogs will indicate how many seeds are in their packets for each crop. Sometimes you will see the seed weight listed as grams. There are twenty-eight grams in one ounce. There is always something you’ll want to remember about this crop or these seeds. You can put that information in Column J.

You can probably find online calculators that will supply you with the amount of seeds you need, but working these calculations yourself gives you an understanding you wouldn’t have with a computer generated list.

Develop reference material specific to your needs. I have a chart for my own use that lists all the crops I might grow in my garden with
columns for the spacing I use, seed needed per 100 ft
²
, the yield figures from
How to Grow More Vegetables
, the yield I’ve obtained in my garden, and the friends and foes of each crop. That chart is in my garden notebook and serves as a quick reference. A chart with the information you tend to look up each year, specific to your garden, is a great resource.

Germination Test

If you want to have a more accurate number for the germination rate, you can test your seeds yourself. It’s a good thing to do if you have older seeds or seeds that have been stored in less than desirable conditions. Many times it is suggested to use a paper towel to put the seeds on. We don’t buy paper towels and I don’t like them for germination tests anyway. I use coffee filters for germination tests and find they hold up much better when wet. (I don’t normally buy coffee filters, either, but I have an inexpensive package of filters I bought years ago for seed germination.) Write the date, name, and origin of the seeds on the filter with a pen while it is still dry. Wet the filter and wring out excess water. Put at least ten seeds (make sure you know how many are there) on the filter. Fold it up and put it in a container with a lid — a wide-mouth jar will do. You can do many tests at the same time with each variety of seed on its own filter in the jar. Everything needs to be moist so the seeds will germinate; if necessary, add a few more drops of water before you close it up. Every few days, open each filter and check the seeds. When you are sure that no more will germinate count the seeds. If eight seeds germinate out of ten, the germination rate is eighty percent. If you put twenty seeds there and eighteen germinate, your rate is ninety percent. The seeds from some crops will germinate faster than others. Beans and squash are pretty fast, but peppers can take up to three weeks to germinate.

Once you have the germination rate, put it on your seed inventory and on the seed package. If the germination is low, it doesn’t mean that you need to discard the seeds. Make a note and be sure to plan accordingly when you plant. Likewise, you might have better germination than you thought. That will save you seed when planting and save space in the flat, coldframe, or garden bed. Doing a germination test is also a good
way to tell which varieties are more vigorous than others. You might find that the seed you save yourself or from a certain company germinates better than others.

Years ago, I had an interesting experience with bean seeds in the garden. It was right about April 25 and a really nice day. Obviously the weather was turning warm, but then, you never know at that time of year. I wanted to get a bed of snap beans planted and I was in a hurry. I had to go to Richmond to a meeting that day and didn’t have much time to be in the garden. I had Provider snap beans from two different companies, intending to use the beans from the company that I thought had the hardiest seeds for that first planting. Well, I couldn’t find those, so I planted the others. The soil was probably a little on the cool side. The beans came up, but there were bare spots and the yield from that bed wasn’t what I’d hoped for. Once the weather warmed, I planted another bed of snap beans. This time I planted half the bed with seeds from the first package I’d used for the earlier planting and the other half the bed with seeds from the company that I thought would be the hardiest. When I had both packages together, I saw that the seeds from the package I had planted earlier varied in color and size. The other package had seeds all the same size and a uniform dark color. I had good germination from both packages in that bed when conditions were excellent. I imagine that the seeds in the second package would have done better in the cooler soil conditions of April. From that experience I learned to pay more attention to seeds. I also learned to not be in so much of a hurry.

Save Your Own

Saving your own seeds from one year to the next is the best thing you can do to insure the sustainability of your food supply.
Whoever owns the seeds controls the food supply
. If you save the seeds from the plants
that do well under your growing conditions, you will have developed strains of those varieties unique to your garden. I’ve already mentioned growing open pollinated varieties. In order to make sure the varieties don’t cross with one another if you grow more than one of each crop, learn more about isolation distances. A good seed-saving reference for your library is
Seed to Seed
by Suzanne Ashworth.

You might decide that seed saving is what you really like to do. In that case you could consider growing seeds on a large scale for sale through a catalog. The last chapter in
Sustainable Market Farming
is about just such a venture. Written by Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, that chapter explains some ins and outs of contract seed growing. If you are growing seeds to sell, you will also be interested in reading
The Organic Seed Grower
by John Navazio.

A website that you will want to visit is
savingourseeds.org
.
¹
It is managed by Jeff McCormack who has a long history with seeds, including founding Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Some of the information in this site is specific to the southeast, but there is plenty of good material there for seed saving in general. You don’t need expensive equipment to save your own seeds. If you are growing beans, peas, and corn out for seeds to eat, you already have the skills for that. Tomatoes, peppers, and winter squash are easy because you are eating the mature fruit. The seeds can just be separated and dried. I leave them out on a plate until dry before storing them. Tomato seeds do need to go through fermentation by putting the seeds and pulp in a jar with water until the seeds separate out, but that is easy to do in your kitchen. Make sure that the plants you are saving seeds from are mature or the seeds won’t be viable.

Varieties can sometimes disappear from the seed catalogs, just when you were getting to know them. That happened to me one year when I was growing lettuce to sell to area restaurants. The variety of romaine lettuce that I was growing had an open head, making it nice to rinse clean for my market. One year the seed catalog I had gotten it from didn’t offer it. I still had seed left from the previous year, so I thought I’d try my hand at growing it out. I learned that lettuce plants can grow several feet high and are capable of producing a lot of seed. From just a small patch I harvested four ounces of romaine lettuce seed that summer.