MALE ANNOUNCER: Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by-- FEMALE ANNOUNCER: The Subaru Crosstrek, designed with adventure in mind, built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru-- proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: And the following-- the US Composting Council, Milorganite, and Rain Bird.

[gentle instrumental music] ♪ JOE LAMP'L [voice-over]: I'm Joe Lamp'l.

For 10 years, Growing a Greener World has told the stories of the people and the places who are making a difference in the health of our environment and the sustainability of our global community.

But as we embarked on our 11th season, life changed overnight.

So many things we took for granted would never be the same again.

Now it's up to each of us to take a more active role in not just saving our planet, but making it better, feeding our families with organically grown food, conserving vital resources, protecting natural habitats, starting in our own backyards.

Growing a Greener World-- it's still our mission, and it's more important than ever.

A seed it's how everything in your garden-- it's how everything in every garden begins.

But many of us never really stop to give much thought to the seeds that give birth to our favorite plants.

But 2020 will go down as the year that forced many gardeners to look at their seeds in a whole different light.

Seed companies across the United States, and really, around the world sold out of their vegetable garden seeds, many for the first time ever.

With the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, seed companies quadrupled their sales, skyrocketing as gardeners look to fortify and expand their existing vegetable gardens, and many people started a vegetable garden for the very first time.

As gardeners everywhere are buying seed at a record pace, many are encountering terms they've never even seen or given much thought to.

Terms like certified organic, heirloom, conventional, open pollinated, and non-GMO are suddenly showing up on seed packets and in marketing and sales materials, and it's suddenly more important than ever to understand that there can be dramatic differences in how those seeds will perform in our gardens and what they mean for our planet.

So today we go back through the Growing a Greener World archives to bring you our greatest hits on seed study and seed saving.

It's a trip through 10 seasons, along with a couple hairstyle changes and a few questionable wardrobe choices along the way to bring you our best tips, techniques, and thinking on seeds, and you can't grow a greener world without them.

When we look at our history, seed was among the most prized possession of both the immigrants coming to America and the pioneers traveling west in a covered wagon.

With their seed came all the flavors and heritage of their old homeland and represented new life in a new land.

Every year that seed was carefully grown out, harvested, and saved for the following year.

It's the way things were done for hundreds of years.

But today, things have changed.

Fewer and fewer farmers are saving their own seeds, which means they have to rely on just a few large companies that sell seed for agriculture.

So without going into all the politics, it's still easy to see that now farmers have fewer options on what to grow, and thus, fewer choices on what to eat.

Meet Nash Huber, an organic farmer located in Sequim, Washington.

He's also a well-known leader in environmentally-sustainable farming practices, land conservation, and has won numerous farm stewardship awards.

Nash and his team go beyond organic as they farm over 700 acres.

Much of it is part of various long-term conservation leases to protect the land from development.

Nash works to protect that land as he grows acres of vegetables, berries, fruit trees, pastured animals, grain, and of course, organic seed.

NASH HUBER: Seed, of course, when you're growing food or growing crops, seed is obviously something you have to have.

You have to have access to seed, you have to have access to land, you have to have access to water, you need finance, you need capital.

But seed, if you don't have seed, you might as well not have land, and so you're not going to eat.

Seed has become pretty much the domain of five or six large chemical companies on the planet earth.

And so that's proprietary information.

It's much like-- seeds or much like a book, you know?

And so it's a library.

And so you had this consolidation where we used to have this multiplicity of seed companies that were very regional.

And then we go through this conglomeration, this boiling down to where it's all under the jurisdiction of four or five multinationals, and in the process, they sort out the books and they throw some away.

And as an agriculturalist, you lose friends, you lose plant, seeds that you've known for a long time, that you become a-- you've had a relationship with, you understand.

I was trained as a chemist beside-- I was a farm boy coming up from the Midwest, but I went to school and got a meal ticket b and worked in the food industry for a half-a-dozen years in research.

And so I saw it from that angle, too, I saw what was happening to food, industrialization of food.

Then at the same time, see that happening to seed.

Such an important ingredient, as important as the food you eat.

And having studied corporations and kind of have a feeling for how they think and how they work, I understood what that meant for seed.

JOE LAMP'L: The Organic Seed Alliance is headquartered in nearby Port Townsend, just north of Seattle.

Their purpose is to foster the ethical development and stewardship of agricultural seed.

They train local farmers like Nash and others across the country, teaching, researching, and advocating to protect what they consider to be a living natural resource.

Micaela Colley has been with the OSA since 2010.

Like Nash, we met her in season 5.

MICAELA COLLEY: Farmers play an important role in all of our work at Organic Seed Alliance.

In our advocacy program, in our education program, a lot of our educational workshops are right in farmers' fields.

But perhaps most importantly in our research program, we work with farmers and public and private plant breeders to breed new varieties for organic agriculture.

People think that saving seed is about preserving varieties the way that they used to be, but our ancestors always had a goal of improving varieties for the future.

Saving seed from the healthiest plants, the tastiest plants.

So we work with farmers to do just that, to improve varieties, and we also work with them to breed new varieties.

Now the oldest way of saving and preserving seeds for future generations was to simply allow plants to pollinate freely, and when you grew out the seeds from those plants, they would come true to type to produce virtually identical crops.

Now the term used to describe that is open pollinated.

MICAELA COLLEY: A lot of people get confused about the difference between an open pollinated seed and a hybrid seed, but what it comes down to is that as a farmer or a gardener, can save seed from an open pollinated variety and it will come true to type the next generation.

If you save seed from a hybrid, you're going to get a mixture of types of plants in the field the next year.

So the way an open pollinated population is created is allowing all of the plants in the field to freely inter-mate with each other without human intervention.

The way a hybrid is created is two open pollinated populations are maintained separately from each other and inbred until they are highly genetically uniform, and then those two populations are crossed.

So when you save seed from a hybrid, what you get is some of the traits of the mother, some of the father, and some of something in between.

So a lot of people get confused between the different strain the hybrid and a genetically modified organism or GMO variety.

But all plants have genes.

The difference is that a GMO variety has been manipulated to insert DNA that is not from the same species as that variety, so it's a human intervention into the genetics.

Hybrids are created, but with under natural circumstances.

JOE LAMP'L: You know the old saying, sometimes you don't appreciate what you've got until it's gone?

Well such is the case with many of the seeds and plants our ancestors grew.

Sadly, many are gone forever, and along with them, their flavor and beauty, and that's not all.

As certain plants disappear from this earth, it disrupts and threatens the biodiversity that depend on them to keep things in balance.

Heritage Farm is the home to Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, a growing global community of gardeners who since 1975 have shared hundreds of thousands of seed samples while in the process continue to build a network of people committed to its mission of collecting, growing, and distributing heirloom seeds and plants.

That was the vision and dream of Seed Savers' co-founder, Diane Ott-Whealy, 35 years ago.

Today, they have about 13,000 members who share that simple but important mission-- to help save the world's diverse but endangered garden heritage for future generations.

Probably the most popular question or one of the most frequently asked questions is what is an heirloom?

And the easiest way for me to explain that is to maybe compare it to an heirloom piece of furniture or a piece of jewelry, something that has been in the family and handed down from generation to generation, but there's a big difference with heirloom vegetables because they're alive.

When we started Seed Savers 35 years ago, I don't think heirloom vegetables were even thought about or much less desired or even people who didn't understand what they were.

35 years later, people are more aware of where their food comes from, they want to know where their food comes from, and that brings up a sensitive issue about where the seed comes from.

Every seed has a story, and it's up to us and family generations to keep that story alive with the seed.

So not only are we growing seed to keep the seed viable, but we're also encouraging the story and how that seed was used, and connecting that seed with the food, with the food to the garden.

JOE LAMP'L: But whether it's a treasured family heirloom variety you want to pass down or you just want to stretch your gardening dollar by saving your own seed to plant in future seasons, it's something any gardener can do.

We learned how way back in our second season.

Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, Sow True Seed sits in the community of Candler.

They specialize in non-hybrid and GMO-free seed for home gardeners.

The former co-founder, Peter Waskiewicz, is a big advocate for teaching home gardeners how to save their own seed for the best yields.

Most people know how to save seed using the dry method where you simply allow the seed to mature on the plant until it's dry.

Classic examples would be like beans and peas, for example, where the seed dries in the pod.

But where the seed is encased in a moist or wet environment, well then the wet seed saving process works best.

Classic examples of that would be tomatoes and cantaloupe, eggplant, and squash, such as pumpkins.

And a lot of people that I know that save the seeds from pumpkins treat it like a dry method where they just extract the seeds, lay them out on a paper towel, and that's the end of it.

But it sounds like the wet method is better.

PETER WASKIEWICZ: Yeah.

That will work, but you're going to get a much higher germination and a longer storage if you use the wet process.

JOE LAMP'L: Scoop all the seeds out into a clean bucket, preferably with a tight-fitting lid, to minimize odor as they go into a fermentation process over the next 24 to 36 hours.

During this time, store them in a place where the temperatures remain around 90 degrees or less.

Any hotter and it can kill some of the seeds.

Before setting the seeds aside, add just enough water to cover them, but no more.

This aids in the fermentation process and keeps the seeds from drying out prematurely.

During the fermentation phase, stir the seeds about twice a day.

This helps clean the seeds from the pulp, and it also aids in separating the good seeds, which settle to the bottom, from some of the bad seeds, which float to the top.

Once the fermentation process is complete, it's time to cull the good seeds from the bad.

A large bucket combined with a high pressure hose and spray nozzle works well to blast the remaining pulp from the seeds.

Once it's nearly full, slowly pour the water into another clean bucket while being careful not to pour so fast that you lose the good seeds the bottom.

Since they're lighter, non-viable seeds will rise to the top and pour out with the wastewater, but it doesn't happen all at once.

It takes several flushes of refilling the bucket and carefully pouring off the wastewater to keep clean the good seeds while purging the bad.

Once the seeds were thoroughly cleaned and only the good ones remained, we poured them out to dry.

The seeds need good air circulation and plenty of room to spread out.

This is a simple device that anyone can make using a lightweight wood frame and windows screen.

It's perfect for this purpose.

PETER WASKIEWICZ: --evenly to dry.

Try to get them to where they're not touching one.

Another.

JOE LAMP'L: And that's the process.

Now the final step is just to give this plenty of time to thoroughly dry with good air circulation underneath, and in a safe place out of the elements.

Ready?

PETER WASKIEWICZ: All right.

JOE LAMP'L: All right.

Now that we've gone to all that work to process the seeds, we want to make sure that they're dry enough to store, and there's a couple of ways to do that, and it depends on the type of seed.

For the pumpkin seeds that we just saved, the ones that are flat, well there's the brittleness test.

And it's simple to do.

You just take one of those flat seeds and you bend it in half.

And if it snaps just like that, it's dry enough to store.

But if it bends over kind of like it's rubbery, well, don't store that because it's not dry enough.

And then there's the round, see like the corn or the pea.

Now that's the smash test, it's my favorite one.

All you do is get yourself a hammer, place the seed on a flat surface, and smash it.

If it shatters like that, it's dry enough to store.

But if it just sort of mushes, don't store those because they're not dry enough yet.

But once you've collected all those dry seeds, then you want to put them into an envelope, and there's some basic information you want to be sure to add to that envelope, such as the name of the seed, when it was harvested or grown, and of course, the origin of the seed.

But any additional information that you have that will help you remember that seed when it's time to plant it, well that's going to help, too, such as flavor or color or anything else, go ahead and add it to the envelope.

It doesn't cost anything to do that.

Then you want to store that envelope in an airtight container.

Now I like to use these canning jars because they have a nice recyclable lid, but you can also use those plastic recyclable containers or even a metal jar, for example.

Then you want to put this into a cool, dry place, store it in the pantry, for example, and then it's going to be ready for you when you're ready to plant.

Now when you swap those seeds with your friends or you buy them at the store, you assume that they're going to germinate no problem, right?

And in fact, seed packs have a use-by date on the package to let you know when to use them by for optimal performance.

But the nice thing about seeds, most varieties will last for several years beyond that point with proper care and storage.

So just because it's past that date doesn't mean the seeds are no longer viable.

But how do you know about those older or questionable seeds?

I mean, it would be nice to know if they're going to sprout before you plant them out, right?

Well for that, I use a germination test.

So the goal of the germination test is to determine the approximate percentage of seeds that are still good, like Shawn's magic bean seeds here.

He has no idea how old they are.

But you can use that percentage to see whether or not you need to plant more seeds out to reach your goal, or on the other hand, whether or not it's worth even planting out at all.

First, take a paper towel and moisten it with a spray bottle.

Place 10 of the seeds to be tested onto the paper towel.

Next, fold the wet paper towel over the seeds and carefully place them inside a plastic bag.

Seal and label the bag with a date and keep it in a warm environment.

After a few days, begin checking the seeds daily for germination.

Depending on the variety you're testing, the seeds may begin to sprout in a day or two, or they may take up to several weeks to start.

If nothing happens, you know the seed is no longer good.

A low number of sprouts means you need to plant more thickly, and a high number of sprouts means you're good to go with a regular planting.

Well, not bad.

Nine out of 10 seeds sprouted, and you don't even need to be a math whiz to know that that's 90%, which is why you test for 10 seeds to make it easy to calculate the percentage.

And for a fast start in the garden, you don't want to throw these out because they're ready for planting.

Now for the most part, with proper soil and moisture and the appropriate soil mix, most of the seeds that we're likely to plant in our garden will germinate with little care on our part.

But that's not true for all seeds.

In nature, seeds are exposed to all kinds of elements, like wind and rain and freezing temperatures and even the digestive tracts of animals.

Now that helps break down the hard outer coating of certain seeds, which makes it easier for them to germinate.

At home, we can mimic some of those harsher elements found in nature to break through the hard outer coating of some of those tougher seeds with time-honored tricks gardeners have been using for centuries.

The first trick is the warm soak.

To soften their hard outer layer, some seeds benefit from a simple soaking in warm water before planting, like okra, peas, beans, and nasturtiums.

And it's as simple as placing the seeds in a cup of warm but not boiling water and let them set for 24 hours, and then plant out as usual.

Another method of breaking through the seed coat of extremely hard surfaces is through a process called scarification, and that's just a fancy name for scarring or scratching.

But it allows water to penetrate into the seed which enables it to germinate.

Now Mother Nature does a great job of handling that process outdoors.

But at home, the best way to do that is by rubbing each seed on a file or piece of sandpaper.

And how much?

Well, just until you can see a change in color in the seed is a good rule of thumb.

And here's a great tip.

You see this dot?

That's where the shoot is going to emerge, so you want to scratch the opposite end so that you don't damage the eye of the seed.

And then just scratch each seed and plant as usual.

And then there stratification.

Now the term refers to simulating nature's ebbs and flows of winter and early spring.

Now some seeds need that temperature variability as their cue to sprout, and some perennial seeds and a lot of tree seeds require stratification before they germinate.

Indoors, we can mimic that by putting seeds in a plastic bag with a moist but not wet soil mix and placing it in the refrigerator for about 10 to 12 weeks.

When you bring the bag out of the cold to plant, the seeds think it's springtime and they'll begin to sprout.

Saving seed, growing plants specifically for the seeds rather than for food, doing it all as organically as possible.

For many, it starts as an interesting side avenue of gardening, but becomes a calling all its own.

That's what happened to Tom Stearns.

He started with 28 plant varieties that he sold out of his own Vermont backyard with a one-page flyer.

Now that company, High Mowing Organic Seeds, is an industry leader.

TOM STEARNS: There was not any other organic seed out there anywhere.

And so that was something people were really, really responding to.

It wasn't just the fact that it was organic seed, but that most seed companies don't actually grow any of their own seed.

I was growing all of it, 100%.

And so when people were buying seed from me, they knew that.

And it's kind of like why people go to farmer's market sometime.

It's the quality, it's the freshness, and it's to see that farmer on the other side of the table, to know where the where the food is coming from, to be able to trust it, to ask questions.

We have found that there is a pretty major difference with seeds produced organically when they're used on organic farms.

If you're producing a seed organically for organic farms, it's going to be better adapted for those conditions.

So when you're planting a certain crop, you can do it when the weather and the soil conditions are favorable for that crop so that you don't need to come in with some rescue chemical to help solve an issue that you shouldn't have in the first place if you are paying attention to those things.

So using organically-bred varieties instead of conventionally-bred varieties is very much like having a much sharper tool instead of a dull tool when you're using it.

And so if you're finding varieties that really fit, that have the flavor you're looking for, this is what we're selecting and choosing our varieties.

High flavor, high disease and insect resistance, high yield, and those are things I think that matter for home gardeners quite a lot.

JOE LAMP'L: But as simple as it seems, creating an easy environment for things to grow in has proven to be exceptionally difficult for the human race.

And Tom Stearns hopes the little company that started as a backyard hobby can help turn the tide.

TOM STEARNS: We can't really blame humanity too much for screwing up as much as we've had because we didn't really know a whole lot for a whole bunch of years.

Like, we didn't mess this planet up a thousand years ago, really, because we weren't big enough to do it.

But we have for the last few hundred years because we didn't really understand ecology and how that works.

Well we don't have that excuse anymore.

Now there's a whole bunch of billions of us, and we understand ecology and science.

We don't have any excuse for doing the damage that we're doing now.

So if we want this habitable planet to be something that's thriving with humans on it long, long, long-term, we need to re-figure out a whole bunch of things.

It could be growing food indoors, it could be growing food on your rooftops, it could be growing food in small ways all over the place, but it is the single biggest way that we engage with this earth, and we are doing it wrong.

There's no arguments about that among people.

We just need the courage to figure out the new ways of doing it.

JOE LAMP'L: For me, I want to know more than just where my food comes from or where the plant was grown, but where the seed comes from in the first place, because it's important for me to know that the seed that I'm buying and the seed companies that I'm supporting are doing their part to grow the plants that produce those seeds in the most environmentally-responsible way.

And then that helps me garden as organically as possible for everything under my watch here at the garden farm, and it's a big part of how I can do my part to grow a greener world, and it has to start with the seed.

If you'd like to learn more about the people that we featured today or watch this episode again, we can do that on our website under the show notes for this episode.

And the website address, that's the same as our show name, it's GrowingAGreenerWorld.com.

Thanks for watching, everybody.

I'm Joe Lamp'l, and I'll see you back here next time for more Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by-- FEMALE ANNOUNCER: The Subaru Crosstrek, designed with adventure in mind, built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru-- proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

MALE ANNOUNCER: And the following-- the US Composting Council, Milorganite, and Rain Bird.

[gentle instrumental music] ♪ MALE ANNOUNCER: Continue the garden learning from the program you just watched, Growing a Greener World.

Program host, Joe Lamp'l's Online Gardening Academy offers classes designed to teach gardeners of all levels, from the fundamentals to master skills.

Classes are on demand any time.

Plus, opportunities to ask Joe questions about your specific garden in real time.

Courses are available online.

For more information or to enroll, go to growingagreenerworld.com/learn.

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