about

Calling All Gardeners - Seed Saving is Important for Everyone !

Seed Saving is fun and empowering, can reconnect every one of us to nature's true abundance, connects (us to) local communities, critical sustainability movements & enables us to co-create the foundation for resilience and a secure food system.

Our tremenduous loss of biodiversity is highly dangerous, as monocultures tend to collapse.
But everyone of us can contribute to restoring biodiversity. Check "Why should basically Everyone save seeds ?" for a list of personal benefits and a deeper explanation of important reasons for becoming a seed saver.

Learn all you need to know joyfully and in flow

Enjoy a free ( as in "accessible, important & engaging education" ) play-learn calendar "course" .

The intention behind this comprehensive and practice-based resource is to enable you to learn all the necessary theory for participating most effectively in the most joyful way.

What else can you find here ?

• A growing collection of maps & networks #seedsaving which allows you to connect 

• A a growing blog library, which allows you to go deeper with your own research

• Plus a blog for seeding more small steps toward a sane, permanent culture; with yet irregular blog posts... (Scroll down for a complete topic list).

More About the Calendar: How To & Declaration

Just have a look at the recent month e.g. over a cup of tea or coffee every now and then - and feel inspired to start with a few of the offered practical examples....

If you use the online/digital version, e.g. as desktop wallpaper you can use a gardening app like Growstuff in addition to note all your plant details.
If you enjoy to use the print version as tangible gardening calendar  & "work book" (and support this & further projects), you can order it here. (From November 15th, 2013 on) (Sorry, no print version yet ! I followed my intuition and aim to realise the following, truly fair project & for enabling it, license: LINK :) )

Seeds are alive, tiny breathing embryos with a food storage. There is something magic about seeds,  complete plant life cycles - and nature: the genuine magic and abundance of LIFE.....and seed saving can help us to feel enchanted by it again, everyday.

Besides all most urgent aspects - from increasing biodiversity, restoring seed sovereignty to supporting non-GMO food, sustainable living and community-creation -  seed saving can reconnect us to nature on an even deeper level: to caring for nature and realising that nature cares for us. (Growing our own food does already, but seed saving makes this experience more complete.)

Not though, but because growing food and saving seed is the epitome of civilisation, it is important that we can experience, that creative human interaction with nature can happen in harmony with her, aiming to give back more than we take and to create long-term stable systems.
Permaculture is the holistic design science behind this approach and is introduced through the calendar. (How-to for an 1/4 acre suburban situation; For a longer more thorough explanation of the bigger picture that features the founder of the complete design science, Bill Mollison, see here.)

Declaration:

This resource is deeply researched, but the author is not a professional gardener or botanist and won't take responsibility for any outcomes. 
Especially as wild edibles will be a focus topic here: Learn with a local mentor/teacher ! Do never eat a plant that you can't identify 100% as edible!!

What kind of gardener are you ?

Seed saving fosters awareness and community-action for sustainability - it doesn't take much time on a small scale.
Children love it  (- naturally :)

If you already are a gardener and have your own garden - happy seed saving !!
If you are new to gardening, you can start to save seeds from e.g. organic tomatoes or pumpkins as an entrance - but limit your growing and saving plan(t)s to few varieties for a start.
If you are an urban gardener, you can save seeds too & inform yourself about local community projects and/or consider to initiate one.

Yes, it is true that seed saving often requires to save from larger plant populations to maintain genetic diversity (See February illustration & March)
 - but NO, this does not need not keep you from practicing & learning: With small gardens, you can grow out same varieties with neighbours, friends and your local community & "mix" your seeds ; Ideally you find a seed library next to you - or start one. Furthermore you can add the plants you grow and save seeds from to this wonderful site - and inspire your gardening friends to do so too; If we take this serious, we can hopefully soon find more seed savers close to us.

Connect to local communities who are interested in growing their own food or already practicing seed saving. In cities you can connect to local community garden projects in addition to your small urban gardening space - or initiate them !

Let us become aware of all our gardens as one global civic action for food sanity  - and enjoy to grow there "together".

---------------------------------------------------------

This site is about seed saving and soon permaculture, but also (open/free) education.

I am convinced that important knowledge needs to be free for all.  Even more importantly, that it needs to be offered in the most attractive and engaging way we can imagine & create. This takes time and is a lot of work. The combination of a free education resource (free for personal use)  with a product allows to make the "content as experience" free.  

Please help me to improve this resource - comment, or mail me at julia@seeds4all.net

------------------------------------------------------------------

Free Education Resource  :

Seed Saving calendar & blog about

• Seed Saving 
• Permaculture 
• Medicinal Uses of Plants
• Wild Edibles
• Interesting Varieties
• Edible Landscaping
• (Urban)Gardening
• Gardening & Landscape Design
• but also: Beautiful Gardens / Recipes

-------------------------------------------------------------