Benefits of Saving Seeds

Saving your own seeds has a lot of benefits.

If you save the seeds from the plants which did best in your micro climate of your vegetable garden, the ones which were most frost resistant, more drought tolerant, germinated the earliest, bolted late, eventually you end up with your own specific plant, one which is best suited to your gardens environment. Even selecting the seeds without these specific criteria, just simply saving the seeds from plants which seem to grow best in your garden will often condition the strain of the plant to the micro climate of the place it's planted regularly.

Another benefit is, that you can improve the vegetables quality. Just by selecting the seeds of the plants which taste best, yield the most, grow the fastest, give an early harvest, grow the biggest, had the best color, had the least disease problems, less pest problems, or any other quality you desire, if you save seeds from the best plants eventually, over a period of years, you get an improved strain with better qualities then the original seed.

Saving seeds also saves money. I admit, seeds are really not that expensive, but saving them, they cost nothing.

Plus you might eventually find a new strain of a vegetable growing in your garden, one which came about through a mutation or cross pollination, you now have a new vegetable strain, a Heirloom Vegetable and you only can keep it going by saving the seeds. You can't buy that one in any catalog, it only comes from your garden. There are many vegetables offered by seed companies which started out being a heirloom strain, that were developed by back yard gardeners and had been grown and saved for many years or even generations. Keeping these seeds going is a great gift to the future generations, a great gift to the world.

And last saving seeds is a sustainable task. Instead of relying on a seed company to keep your favorite seeds in stock, you are relying on yourself. You don't need to worry, a seed you really liked maybe won't be available next year in your favorite catalog. Your supply of your well chosen seeds, if correctly stored will feed you next year. Price, postage or fuel increases won't affect you.
Being self reliant also can give a satisfaction of knowing you can take care of yourself. Being able to provide for yourself, and maybe for your extended family, your friends and improving your own seeds is something to be proud of.
After all they are unique, they are your very own seeds, you can't get them anywhere else but from your garden.