2020 and 2021 saw unprecedented vegetable seed sales, with shortages of many gardeners’ favorite varieties.
What many gardeners don't realize, though, is that by saving seeds from their vegetable garden each year, they can avoid shortages while also becoming home plant breeders who conserve and enhance local crop diversity. To address this issue, this summer the Master Gardeners embarked on a new project with Delaware Valley University Plant Breeder Dr. Sarah Dohle.
"Grow-Save-Repeat" was designed to provide Master Gardeners with the resources and knowledge they need to educate home gardeners on seed saving and home plant breeding. For this pilot season, Master Gardeners in Bucks, Montgomery, Monroe, and Wayne Counties used their demonstration gardens to grow hybrid peppers, tomatoes, squash, and lima beans from Dr. Dohle's own plant breeding program. Throughout the summer, Master Gardeners observed and sampled the trial plants in their demonstration gardens for differences in growth and taste. Master Gardeners in Wayne County even partnered with a local brewpub to engage the public in taste-testing the produce.
At the end of the summer, Master Gardeners reviewed their data to pick their favorite plants from each of the species in their gardens, then collected, cleaned, and stored the seeds from their selections. In 2022, the Master Gardeners will plant this new generation of seeds in their demonstration gardens and start the process over again. Pilot counties will also share their seeds and lessons learned with other county Master Gardener programs to expand the project across the state.
