SAVING BIENNIAL SEEDS

If I’ve read it once, I’ve read it a dozen times: “Saving biennial seeds is a challenge.” It seems many of my gardening books take the position that it’s too hard for the novice and that we’d be better off buying more seed packets every year instead.

Well, this novice gardener is a bit stubborn, and that advice didn’t line up with my desire for self-sufficiency. So, with total inexperience, an armload of gardening books, and a handful of heirloom seeds, I decided to try anyway. A few years later, I’ve grown a lot of plants, made a big mess, and—both because of and despite my bumbling efforts—ended up with the wonderful gift of jars upon jars of heirloom seeds to fill my gardens in the future.

Those books were right; it was a challenge. But was it worth attempting? Absolutely! If you want to see whether you, too, can join the ranks of heirloom biennial seed savers, here are some mistakes I made and things I learned along the way. If I can