Seed saving: preserving the future

Photo by MiChelle MCConnaha Homestead Organics Farm co-operator Laura Garber shows some of this year’s seeds hanging in her drying shed before they are cleaned and shared with the Triple Divide Organic Seed Cooperative that has 10 member farms across Montana.

seed saving: preserving the future by stewarding the present

MicHelle MccOnnAHA rAvAlli republic

Homestead Organics Farm, Inc. a fourteen-acre certified organic farm just south of Hamilton is part of the Triple Divide Organic Seed Cooperative with 10-member farms across Montana.

Members must be certified organic in Montana and follow safe standards for growing seeds.

“It is a group of organic farmers in Montana that all wanted to grow seeds for Montana gardeners and farmers,” said Homestead Organics Farm co-operator Laura Garber. “We share seed-saving knowledge, the best practices for seed growing and since we’re a coop, we each steward different seeds.”

Homestead Organics has been stewarding about 34 crops including the Yellowstone Carrot.

“We grow it, plant the seeds, harvest the best roots and replant them,” Garber said. “We are maintaining the Yellowstone Carrot. No one grower could grow everything a gardener would want because of cross-pollination. We have to have separation and by having 10 different members we can each grow some of the crops and together we have a full catalog.”

This year the Triple Divide Organic Seed Cooperative has 150 varieties of seeds. Every co-op member is growing a different variety of carrot so Triple Divide customers can select which type they enjoy best.

Being a good steward means being selective with seed selec-

Agriculture Magazine, Fall, 2021 - Page 13

tion and choosing wisely for diversity, longevity, taste, color, shape and heartiness.

“We’re growing open-pollinated seeds, which means nonhybrid seeds,” Garber said. “These are seeds that have been grown for many, many years. Our grandmothers saved seeds, our great-grandmothers saved seeds. It’s a long-standing tradition for humans that we’ve only forgotten about in the last 50 years.”

She said allowing large corporate seed houses to take over seed growing doesn’t make sense.

“We’re letting someone else be in charge of the most important part of our food system,” Garber said. “It is food insecurity if you don’t have your own seeds. It is important to save seeds to maintain the diversity of seeds and to maintain the access to all these different food plants.”

She said small seed companies are being bought up by large seed companies and when large companies decide not to offer a certain variety then it disappears.

“We went from 100s of varieties of corn in the United States to growing only a handful of varieties,” Garber said. “Where is that genetic diversity that would help us adapt to a changing climate? We’ve lost it.”

Crops that have a high profit or are easy to harvest mechanically are what is left.

Financially, for Homestead Organics, growing diverse and stewarded seeds while belonging to the Triple Divide Seed Co-op is good.

For example, if HO sold their seeds to a seed company, they would be paid by the pound but with Triple Divide, HO is paid by the packet that is sold.

“We sell packets of seeds to the retailer like to a health food

Photo by MiChelle MCConnaha Homestead Organics Farm co-operator Laura Garber shows some of this year’s seeds hanging in her drying shed before they are cleaned and shared with the Triple Divide Organic Seed Cooperative that has 10 member farms across Montana.

Page 14 - Agriculture Magazine, Fall, 2021

store, or Ace Hardware, or Lakeland Seeds [Lakeland Feed & Supply], or to Homestead Organics to sell at the farmers market,” Garber said. “The retailer pays the co-op about $2 a packet and then the co-op pays the producer fifty cents for each packet that is sold or 75 cents for each packet of a biennial that is sold.”

She said making fifty cents per packet through the co-op is better than the possible two cents she would make from a seed company.

“Because they are buying it by the pound,” Garber said. “So, as a co-op, we are able to keep the profits in the farmer’s hands instead of in an industry.”

The 2020 crops had record seed sales.

“Part of that was Covid but part is that people are getting excited about what they can grow in Montana,” Garber said. “Triple Divide offers tried, true and stewarded seeds that are good for growing in Montana.”

Selective harvesting of seeds is done at the right time and at HO usually in labeled pillowcases. She saves seeds from a wider selection of a plant.

“I’m not going to save from three plants but from 300 so I get the genetic diversity of all those plants, so as we continue there is more resilience in the seed stock,” she said.

Cleaning the seeds is the larger effort and challenge.

Usually, seed cleaning is done by hand using screens and a box fan. Triple Divide recently purchased three Winnow Wizards for their co-op seed sorting. “It has the fan, blower and all the different screens in one unit,” Garber said. “It has multiple screens so you get your seeds clean in one round instead of eight rounds. We haven’t tried it yet.” Homestead Organics and the Community Food & Agriculture Coalition are presenting a Seed Saving Workshop 4-6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 13. The workshop is part of a series of presentations called Building a Stronger Bitterroot about creating an integrated Food Cycle focused on soil health. It can be attended without attending the other Photo by MiChelle MCConnaha workshop in the series. Beans are perfect for teaching kids about the seed cycle. “We The workshop has a $20 seeded beans with homeschool kids, transplanted them with Youth Farm interns, gave away many with our May Day gardens and, hopefully, the kindergarteners will come harvest,” Laura Garber suggested donation. Register by Oct. 10 at www.missaid. soulacfac.org and attend at Homestead Organics Farm, 175 Skalkaho Hwy, Hamilton. The workshop has a 50-person limit class size. “But we’re happy to talk about seed saving to anyone, anytime,” Garber said. “We are really excited for people to save their own seeds. Seeds are the future and the past. We’re so lucky to be in a career where we test our success by just taking a bite.”” For more on Triple Divide visit tripledivideseeds.com.AG