Thursday thrift......

This week's Thursday thrift is about seed saving. In our garden we have chosen to plant heritage varieties of vegetables for a number of reasons:

*Heritage varieties were developed by home gardeners so they tend to crop over a longer period-perfect for harvesting as required!

* Supermarket varieties have been developed for ease of harvesting (cropping all at once) and transport-often at the expense of taste

* Heritage varieties provide viable seed for future crops-modern F1 hybrid varieties do not set viable seed-or if they do it will not be true to the plant harvested.

I'm a member of the Diggers Club http://www.diggers.com.au/ and a couple of years ago I spent $40 odd dollars on seeds to start our garden with. This year I will spend $4 which will be for sweetcorn-all the other seeds sown will be from those harvested last season, dried and stored in labelled envelopes for the next season. All it takes is letting one of each vegetable variety you want to save from ripen and/or go to seed.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has other thrifty ideas for their gardens!