Saving Seeds to Preserve Plant Diversity

Collecting seeds, drying them and sharing them with others is a wonderful way to disperse plant varieties across regions. The collected seeds can be stored and planted at a later date. You can also embed them in homemade papers and present them as gifts.

Tips for collecting seeds of fruits and flowers

Seeds of sunflowers, hollyhocks and gerbera daisies are ideal to be stocked. Ensure that you collect the seeds of different types of healthy plants so that genetic diversity is preserved.

It is suggested that you harvest plants that are easily pollinated by insects and wind. Collect seeds only from mature and fully ripened flowers. In case you are gathering seeds from fruits, pluck the fruit on a sunny and dry day. Place the pods in separate bags and tie paper bags over it.

The stem should be severed after the fruit ripens completely. Extract the seeds from the plant parts, clean them and place them on a surface to dry completely. The dried seeds are then placed in envelopes and labeled with their name and date of harvest.

Seed Paper items for creative and convenient planting

Planting tiny seeds of vegetables such as carrots is made easier by the use of a seed tape. The seed tape is a biodegradable paper with seeds impregnated and rolled in the form of a tape.

The purpose of the tape is to ease the process of planting when you are dealing with tiny seeds that are hard to handle. It saves you the trouble of spacing the seed apart accurately. The seed tape is also an interesting gift which urges people to sow seeds and preserve the plant variety.

All you need is some flour, newspaper and seeds to make this innovative product. Choose seeds of healthy plant varieties to prevent unwanted traits from being passed on.

Take about a quarter cup of flour and add water to it. Mix it into a fine paste of smooth consistency. Dab the paper strips with paste. Drops seeds onto them spaced apart at a distance as recommended for the plant variety.

Allow the paste to dry thoroughly before you roll the tape. Store the seed tape in an air tight container. To plant the seeds, just place the tape on the ground, sprinkle it with dirt and water it regularly. The homemade seed paper tape makes an excellent gift for environment sensitive people.

Source: http://seattletimes.com/html/homegarden/2019160699_gardenerwithin15.html