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Perpetual Gardening
Why should we consider seed saving?
Nothing demonstrates the independent nature of humans throughout their history than the ability to grow their own food. During the early years, people didn’t have access to seed catalogs like we do today, so they had to save their own seed to grow their plants. In recent years, more people than ever before have seen the need for saving our own seeds.
The History of Garden Seeds in a Nutshell
Before agricultural industrialization, a wider variety of plants was available for food, largely due to gardeners and farmers saving their own seeds for future planting. From the 16th century through the early 20th century, plant diversity was immense. Soon, seed catalogs offered legions of vegetable varieties. Catalog creators sold carefully selected seeds along with useful information about how to cultivate them. However, methods changed after World War II. Agriculture industrialized and food crops began to be primarily grown in large, monocultural plots. To maximize consistency, few varieties of each type of crop were grown. These varieties were selected for their productivity and their ability to ripen at the same time while withstanding mechanical picking and global shipping, as well as their tolerance to drought, frost, or pesticides. Genetic seed diversity has decreased by seventy-five percent within…