Harvest Fest & Soup Recipes

Despite the gloomy weather, Harvest Festival was a cozy event under the post and beams of Heritage Farm’s old barn.  Nearly 300 attendees sampled dozens of different antique apple varieties, heirloom beans, and fragrant roasted garlic.  Tasting over 26 varieties of apples in one place was truly a unique experience.  Apple expert Dan Bussey commented, “I am always amazed that there is no one favorite apple, some visitors really didn’t like Black Gilliflower, one of my favorites.  Taste is so subjective, just another reason this diversity is so important.”

Area chefs Jim McCaffrey from McCaffrey’s Dolce Vita, Justin Scardina from La Rana, Mattias Kriemelmeyer from the Oneota Community Coop, and Stephen Larson from Quarter/QUARTER, went head to head in a soup cook-off featuring heirloom garlic varieties.  Chef Stephen Larson from Quarter/QUARTER was this winner.  Check out his winning recipe, or better yet, head over to his restaurant.

Garlic Insanity!!!

©Stephen Larson and QUARTER/quarter Restaurant LLC

Makes about 10 – 12 ounce servings

 For the soup:

• 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 pound new crop garlic, cloves separated, peeled and crushed
• 1 1/2 pounds fresh oyster mushrooms (or substitute button mushrooms), divided
• 2 pounds fresh sweet corn kernels (or use frozen), divided
• 1/2 pound yellow fleshed potatoes (like Yukon Gold), peeled and cut into small chunks
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon Sriracha hot pepper sauce
• 6 cups corn cob stock (or use vegetable or chicken stock, or water)
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Reggiano Parmesan cheese

Directions:  Melt the butter in a large soup pot over low heat.  Add the garlic then cook it over VERY LOW heat, stirring occasionally, until very lightly golden (about 1 hour).  Meanwhile, trim the stems from the oyster mushrooms and reserve.  Set aside 6 ounces of the mushroom caps for the garnish then add the rest of the caps to the reserved stems.  Once the garlic is done cooking, add the reserved mushrooms stems and cap mixture, 1 1/2 pounds of the corn kernels, salt, sugar, pepper sauce and stock to the soup pot and bring to a boil over high heat.  Once it has come to a boil, turn the heat down to medium and simmer for 20 minutes (or until the potatoes are very soft).  Meanwhile, make the garnish.  When the soup is done simmering, stir in the cream and cheese then blend in batches on high speed until smooth, passing each batch though a fine strainer, to remove the corn skins, into another pot.  Continue below to finish.

For the garnish and to finish the dish:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Reserved oyster mushroom caps, cut into julienne
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary
• Reserved 1/2 pound of corn kernels

Directions:  Put the butter into a large skillet over high heat.  When the butter is melted, add the mushrooms and rosemary, and continue to cook over high heat until the mushrooms are lightly colored.  Add the corn and continue to cook until just tender.  Stir into the blended soup and serve hot.

Or try this one from Chef Jim McCaffrey:

Roasted Garlic, Braebern Apple, Sharp Cheddar Cheese Soup

• 1 Head garlic
• Kosher salt
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 2 Carrots, peeled and chopped
• 1 Onion, chopped
• 6 Tbl flour
• 2 braebern apples, deseeded and cut into eighths
• 4 cups vegetable broth
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 2cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1 Tbl Dijon mustard
• 2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
• ¼ tsp black pepper
• 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 4 oz. can green chile, chopped
• Salt to taste.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cut tip end of garlic off.  Rub open garlic in kosher salt and sprinkle with olive oil.  Wrap with aluminum foil and bake in oven for forty five minutes. Take cloves out of paper.  Add ¼ cup olive oil to large sauté pan. Saute celery, onions, and carrots until carrots are soft. Add flour and stir it in until slightly browned. Add  garlic cloves. Puree in food processor. Add to large pot. Add two tbl olive oil  to sauté pan and sauté apples until soft.  Puree and add to pot. Add broth and bring to a gentle boil. Turn heat to low and add cream and cheese. When cheese is melted, add remaining ingredients and stir. Enjoy!

Antique apple varieties on display at Seed Savers Exchange’s Harvest Festival

If you love apples, then you won’t want to miss the Harvest Festival at Seed Savers Exchange on Saturday, October 13, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm. Come learn that there is more to American apple diversity than Red Delicious and all her modern cousins.

Bring your seeds saved from this year’s harvest for the seed swap. Sample antique apple varieties and vote in the Harvest Soup Cook-off featuring area chefs from La Rana, McCaffrey’s Dolce Vita, Oneota Community Food Cooperative, and QUARTER/quarter.

Other events taking place at the Seed Savers Exchange Harvest Festival—tours, seed swap, apple pressing, and hayrides—begin at noon.  Children’s activities—squash squisher, pumpkin carving & seed saving, seed packet making and collecting, pillow sack threshing, and a garden scavenger hunt—will be happening all day.

Harvest Lecture Series

This year Seed Savers Exchange presents several lectures, including two speakers who are devoted to using healthy food as a tool for developing communities. 

• 10:00am Seed Savers Exchange—“Seed Processing.” Learn how to process seeds and prepare them for storage.
• 11:00am Seed Savers Exchange—“Seed Stories.” Hear the stories and learn how some of our favorite varieties came to be. Seed Savers Exchange launched the Collection Origins Research Effort (CORE), a massive sleuthing effort to collect and record complete histories of thousands of varieties.
• 12:00pm Seed Savers Exchange—“Hard Cider Making.”  Learn various ways hard cider can be made.
• 1:00pm Emily Torgrimson—“Sponsoring community meals to support charitable organizations.”  Torgrimson is founder of Eat for Equity, a non-profit that stages community meals and uses the donations to fund the work of charitable organizations. Featured on the TODAY Show, Eat for Equity has branches in Minneapolis, Boston, Portland, Washington D.C. and Phoenix.
• 3:00 pm Dan Carmody—"Developing Regional Food Systems." Carmody is the President of the Eastern Market Corporation, Detroit, Michigan, where he leads the non-profit charged with converting one of the nation’s oldest and largest public markets into the nation’s most comprehensive healthy metropolitan food hub.

Seed Saving Workshop

For the garden enthusiast, a full-day workshop on the fundamentals of seed saving will be held on Sunday, October 14, from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. This includes an introduction to seed saving, saving biennials, wet and dry processing and storing seeds. Participants will get hands-on seed saving experience. Preregistration is required. Cost is $40 and includes a box lunch (Seed Savers Exchange members receive a 10% discount). Register here.

Located six miles north of Decorah, Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the preservation and distribution of heirloom seeds.  Seed Savers Exchange maintains a collection of thousands of open pollinated varieties, making it one of the largest non-governmental seed banks in the United States.  For information visit www.seedsavers.org.

For more information contact:

Shannon Carmody Seed Savers Exchange shannon@seedsavers.org 563-387-5630

You'll never look at a tomato the same way again

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to attend the Seed Savers Exchange Tomato Tasting—well wait no further.  From a planning perspective, SSE staff members are usually pretty nervous this week, biting our nails as the tomato harvest comes (we want to make sure there is enough for everyone). That is not the case this year. With the warm and early season we are up to our elbows in tomatoes—including many never-before sampled varieties. In fact, in addition to the over 40 commercial varieties, we will be sampling over 20 varieties from the SSE Collection that are only available through the exchange. So come see, taste, and experience tomato diversity in action this weekend from 1-4 PM at Heritage Farm.  Here’s a sneak peak at this year's event:

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Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop

Seed Savers Exchange near Decorah, Iowa, is hosting a free Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop on Saturday, September 1, 2012. The Tomato Tasting will run from 1:00 – 4:00 pm, offering visitors the opportunity to sample a wide variety of heirloom tomatoes and learn how to save tomato seeds.

The event will be held at the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center. More than 40 varieties of tomatoes of all colors and sizes will be available, including yellow cherry, pink beefsteak, striped stuffing, red grape and green roma’s. This year’s tasting will include 10 rare varieties from Seed Savers Exchange’s seed bank collection. Last year, Dester, a beefsteak tomato from the rare varieties was voted most popular.

The Oneota Food Co-op in Decorah is sponsoring this year’s Salsa Contest. Limited to 25 entrants, applications are available at the Co-op, by calling 563-382-4666, and online at www.oneotacoop.com. The registration deadline is Monday, August 27. The co-op will also be providing food for purchase during the event.

There will be tomato seed saving workshops beginning at 12:00 noon featuring Seed Savers Exchange staff as well as tomato advisor and expert Craig LeHoullier. LeHoullier will give two talks, Tasting the Biodiversity of Tomatoes and Tomatoes with Great Stories and Great Flavors. Visitors will be able to tour Seed Savers Exchange’s tomato gardens. Guided hayride tours begin at 12:00 noon and are scheduled for every 45 minutes.

“This family event gives people the opportunity to experience the wide diversity of tomatoes available, and learn how to improve their own gardening experience,” says Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange. The event will include music with special activities planned for kids.

All events are free to the public.

Founded in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange operates an 890-acre farm in northeast Iowa where thousands of rare fruit, vegetable, and other plant varieties are regenerated and preserved in a central collection. Its non-profit mission is conserving and promoting America’s culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants. For information visit www.seedsavers.org

For more information contact:

Shannon Carmody Seed Savers Exchange shannon@seedsavers.org 563-387-5630

Seed Savers Exchange announces Harvest Lecture Series

Decorah, Iowa – Seed Savers Exchange, Inc., a leading non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds, announces its Harvest Lecture Series. The series is designed to connect everyday gardeners and eaters with professionals in the food and seed industries. The Harvest Lecture Series is based on the Science Café model of engaging the general public in a casual setting, an atmosphere where everyone joins in. These lectures and discussions are meant to involve people who may not typically have these conversations.

The lecture series, which will take place in the barn loft at historic Heritage Farm near Decorah, feature

• September 7: Dr. Bill Tracy, "Public Plant Breeding and the Role of Land Grant Universities"
• October 13: Dan Carmody, "Developing Regional Food Systems" and Emily Torgrimson, “Eat for Equity: using community meals to support charitable organizations” (rescheduled from August 17)
• October 19: Dan Bussey, "Our Apple Heritage"

Dr. William Tracy, Ph.D., Professor of Agronomy at UW-Madison, is a sweet corn breeder. To improve eating quality and pest resistance, Bill works with corn varieties from around the world. He creates and releases improved populations, inbreds, and hybrids.

Dan Carmody is the President of the Eastern Market Corporation, Detroit, MI, where he leads the non-profit charged with converting one of the nation’s oldest and largest public markets into the nation’s most comprehensive healthy metropolitan food hub.

Carmody will be joined by Emily Torgrimson, founder and Executive Director of Eat for Equity, a non-profit that stages community meals and uses the donations to fund the work of charitable organizations. Featured on the Today Show, Eat for Equity has branches in Minneapolis, Boston, Portland, Washington D.C. and Phoenix.

Dan Bussey is the Orchard Manager at Seed Savers Exchange. Apple historian and orchard keeper, Bussey has written a book on 14,000 apple varieties grown in North America since the 1600s which is scheduled to be published later this year. He owns a four-acre orchard in Wisconsin featuring more than 250 apple varieties.

Each lecture begins at 7:30 pm and costs $10 ($5 in advance). Refreshments will be served by Oneota Food Coop in Decorah beginning at 6:30.  Register here.

Founded in 1975, Seed Savers Exchange operates an 890-acre farm in northeast Iowa where thousands of rare fruit, vegetable, and other plant varieties are regenerated and preserved in a central collection. Its non-profit mission is conserving and promoting America’s culturally diverse but endangered food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants. For information visit www.seedsavers.org.

This event is co-sponsored by the Leopold Center.

For more information contact: Shannon Carmody, Public Programs Manager shannon@seedsavers.org 563-387-5630

The results are in!

The ‘Dester’ took home the blue ribbon at the 6^th Annual Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop at Heritage Farm last weekend. With over 40 varieties in the lineup, the competition was steep for this year’s unlikely winner.

The ‘ Dester’ tomato was something of a Cinderella story from the SSE trial gardens. Every year our commercial crew grows out a number of new varieties from the collection or from member-growers to discover new offerings for the SSE catalog. This year a champion was born! The ‘Dester’ is a large, full-flavored, pink beefsteak tomato. It was the first tomato on the sampling line, yet the flavor stuck in visitors’ minds when it came time to cast their vote—more than 40 tomato samples later.

Other top finishers included last year’s favorite, ‘Lemon Drop,’ a small yellow-green cherry tomato with a sweet—almost tart—flavor, and ‘Black Sea Man,’ a Russian heirloom with brownish-pink fruit and full-bodied or “complete” flavor, as one participant put it. The salsa tasting line featured 14 homemade recipes. Ironically, the blue ribbon went to Anne Sheahan’s Mango Salsa, proving the eclectic pallets of this year’s voters. (We’ll try to get the heirloom tomato version of the recipe for next year!)

Visitors passed through the display gardens snapping pictures of the towering, 10-foot-tall ‘Hot Biscuits’ amaranth, and the barn wall completely covered in ‘Grandpa Ott’s’ morning glory on their way to seed saving workshops.

SSE tomato advisor Craig LeHoullier was back by popular demand to provide a personal and passionate introduction to the cult of the heirloom tomato, including a list of the tomatoes he would choose to be stranded with on a desert island. (In case you’re wondering, or planning for a "three-hour tour," his list included ‘Cherokee Purple,’ ‘Lucky Cross,’ and ‘Cherokee Chocolate’.)

Craig’s talk was followed by a lively question and answer session, which gave him a chance to show off his encyclopedic knowledge of heirloom tomatoes and their histories. He even managed to dispel a few myths before breaking for a trip through the tomato tasting line. (Don’t believe the hype, says LeHoullier there’s no such thing as a low-acid or disease-resistant tomato!)

“The joy of gardening is that there are no absolutes,” said LeHoullier before prompting the crowd for their favorite qualities of heirloom tomatoes.

Meanwhile SSE staff led a hands-on workshop on saving tomato seeds.

“One thing I try to remember when saving seed at home is that I don’t need 100 fruit to get started,” said workshop facilitator and SSE Horticultural Technician Gabi Masek. “Two to five is really all you need!”

The workshop covered everything first-time seed savers would need to know to start saving their own seed, including ideas of what to do with extra seeds, like trying a home germination test.

While the adults took notes at the workshops and tasting tables, the kids displayed the fun factor of heirloom tomatoes with a tomato toss and ketchup-making activity led by SSE Display Gardener Grant Olsen.

“I already have a few ideas of how to make the tomatoes a little sloppier for next year’s toss,” said Olsen with a grin.

Whether you were tasting, tossing, or taking notes, we hope everyone walked away from this year’s Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop with a little inspiration for their own gardens.

 And if you missed the event, here are a few tomato seed saving tips to help you get get started:

In nature, ripe tomatoes fall from the plant and slowly rot exposing the seeds, allowing natural weathering to break down the slimy gelatinous coating on the seed.  This is easily replicated through the process of fermentation.  To save tomato seed, seed savers must deliberately remove the coating from the tomato seed. Here’s how:

• Take the seeds out of your best looking tomatoes and put them into any container that can hold liquid.  Don’t worry if there is pulp in with the seeds.  Keep as much juice with the seeds as possible.
• Some seed saving techniques suggest adding water to the mixture.  We recommend not adding water unless the mixture evaporates before it starts fermenting.  This can be done by adding about ½ cup of non-chlorinated water to 1 cup of tomato seed and pulp.
• Fermentation should happen in 24 hours-4 days.  This depends on many variables such as air temperature or how ripe the fruit is.  A layer of white mold may grow across the top.  Once this mixture has fermented continue to the next steps so seeds do not germinate.
• Think about where to put the tomato seed mixture because inevitably it will smell. You may want to cover your mixture with a mesh screen to keep out fruit flies.
• After fermenting, add water and stir.  Mature seeds will sink to the bottom.  If the seed is light enough to float, it is probably not fully formed, mature, or viable.  Don’t save these seeds.
• Pour off pulpy mixture, but not the viable seeds in the bottom of your container.
• Pour the remaining liquid into a kitchen strainer and wash thoroughly under the faucet until clean.
• Drain, and then spread the seeds out thinly on surface to dry.  Any substrate to help them dry as quickly as possible will work: coffee filter, paper plates, paper towel, or wax paper.  It is best to dry seeds out of direct sunlight; this could take up to 4 weeks.
• Store the seeds in an envelope or seed packet and place in a dry, cool location.  You can assess the quality of your storage conditions by adding the room temperature in Fahrenheit plus relative humidity.  Try to keep that number under 100; the lower the number the better the conditions for seed storage.

But don’t forget to follow the most important rule:  Put a label on everything, every step of the way.  Because in the words of our collection curator, “No one wants to plant something, thinking they have one variety and end up with something else.”

Note from a seed saver: Tomatoes will, most commonly, self-pollinate, so seeds saved will remain ‘true to type’ without worrying about cross-pollination.  However, there are always exceptions.  Some tomatoes can cross pollinate, this is dependent on many factors such as flower shape, environment, and biodiversity.  To ensure seed purity you may want to plant only one variety or spread different varieties throughout your garden.

Behind the scenes of the 6th Annual Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop

Ok, we have a secret; it’s in the public’s best interest that we come clean with this information. We at Seed Savers Exchange have ulterior motives behind the upcoming Tomato Tasting and Seed Saving Workshop at Heritage Farm on September 3rd.

If you’ve been to the Tomato Tasting in years past, you know that (on the surface at least) this event is a celebration—a festival of flavors, colors, textures, shapes and sizes. In fact, this year visitors will have a chance to sample 40 to 50 different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, ranging from yellow cherry tomatoes to pink beefsteaks and striped stuffing tomatoes. However, we’ve heard from a reliable informant that there will also be a few “new” varieties in the lineup—that is, varieties not currently offered in the Seed Savers Exchange Catalog—or any seed catalog for that matter. This year’s Tomato Tasting will, in fact, feature a few varieties from the SSE collection. Not only do these “trial” varieties keep regular visitors to our Tomato Tasting on their toes, they also represent a critical aspect of SSE’s preservation work.

Many of the varieties in our collection are rare. Offering them in the catalog is a way of introducing them to the public—and more importantly, the food supply. Here’s how the process of selecting “new” heirloom varieties occurs:

Each year SSE’s Preservation garden crew grows out accessions from our collection to regenerate seed. During this time Preservation staffrecord vegetative characteristics, evaluate the quality and quantity of fruit, and save enough seed to preserve in our long-term storage facilities.

Towards the end of the growing season, SSE staff, local market gardener Eric Sessions, and Board Member David Cavagnaro, tour the preservation gardens looking for stand-out varieties. These stand-out varieties are then grown for further evaluation by the Commercial garden crew the following season.

Here’s an example: ‘Emmy’, show-stopping yellow tomato without any signs of blemish, was grown in 2010. We hoped the history of this variety was as good as the tomato, and then we read the donation letter:

October 20, 2005

Dear Seed Savers Exchange,

My friend Emmy was born in Transylvania which used to belong to Hungary. At the end of WW II she was expelled (she was of German descent) and had to leave her house. As she left in the fall of 1945, she grabbed a tomato, managed to keep it throughout the arduous journey into Germany and kept planting the seeds of her Transylvanian tomato.

I met Emmy in 1978 in Rosenheim, Germany and when we left in 1979, Emmy gave me some seeds of her Transylvanian tomato. I have planted this tomato every year, first in Eugene, Oregon and then in Tigard, Oregon. The tomato is yellow, does not grow very large (at least in my garden) and has a very intensive tomato flavor. If you wish, you may name the tomato Emmy!

- Ernestine Bloomberg

“New" or “trial” varieties making an appearance in this year’s Tomato Tasting include the ‘Strawberry’ as well as the ‘Emmy’ tomatoes, both of which are not currently commercially available. However, with your help, that could soon change. We hope you’ll join the conspiracy by attending this year’s tasting and telling us what you think of each variety. Your opinion, and vote, will help us determine the lineup for future catalog offerings!

Browse tomato varieties from the SSE catalog in our online store Learn more about the SSE Yearbook Learn more about SSE preservation

Voices from the 31st Annual Seed Savers Exchange Conference & Campout

The Annual SSE Conference and Campout is a great place to meet like-minded gardeners, learn from experienced seed savers, and enjoy the beauty of Heritage Farm—but don't take our word for it. Hear what this year's participants had to say about the experience: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgPnJdemUlA[/youtube]

Conference highlights: 'Speed saving' with Suzanne Ashworth

Are you interested in the idea of seed saving but think it sounds too difficult or technical to actually try yourself? Let seed saving expert Suzanne Ashworth convince you otherwise. Suzanne led a number of workshops at this year's Conference & Campout. I caught up with her for a few minutes between sessions—and according to Suzanne, a few minutes is all you need to get started. In fact, you could have your own seed collection started in less time than it takes to cook dinner! Check it out: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9H8Wj_bFM[/youtube]

Want to learn more? Here are a few tips from our Public Program Manager Shannon Carmody to help you get started:

If you’re interested in seed saving, understanding some basic concepts before you get started will make the process easier. It all starts in the planning stage; here are a few guidelines to get you started.

• Who’s your daddy? Know whether your parent plant is a hybrid, heirloom or open-pollinated variety.Hybrids, which are created by crossing plants of two different varieties, generally do not produce offspring with the same traits as the parent plant. Seed saved from open-pollinated varieties, on the other hand, will produce plants identical to the parent.Heirloom seeds, which are handed down from generation to generation, can be saved and re-planted and still maintain most of their original characteristics and qualities. In other words, they remain true-to-type.

• Become a mad scientist. Know your plants scientific name (genus and species).Cross pollination is the transfer of pollen between plants. To save pure seed, you want to prevent two different varieties in the same species from cross pollinating. Different varieties of plants within the same species will cross-pollinate, but this doesn’t usually happen between plants in different species. Planting just one variety in a species will help ensure you save pure seed.So if you know your plants scientific names, you will know which ones will cross-pollinate. For example, what we commonly refer to as squash could fall into one of four species: Cucurbita maxima, C. argyrosperma, C. moschata, and C. pepo. These four species won’t typically cross-pollinate. On the other hand, Brassica oleracea includes broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale and kohlrabi, all plants you might think wouldn’t cross but actually do!

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• The birds and the bees. Know how your plants pollinate. Understanding how garden plants pollinate will help you prevent cross-pollination. For example, some plants, like beans or lettuce, will self-pollinate before the flower is even open, making them less susceptible to cross pollination. Although on occasion insects can cross pollinate. Saving seed from “selfers” is a good way to get started.On the other hand, plants that are insect-pollinated (squash or cucumbers) or wind pollinated (corn and spinach) are more likely to cross-pollinate if varieties in the same species are grown together.

• Hey, give me some space! Plan your garden accordingly.Some fruits being saved for seed must be grown to full maturity and allowed to ripen after the fruit’s edible stage. Let’s take carrots for example. When you pull this sweet root out of the ground after about 2 months, there isn’t too much showing above ground. However when you’re harvesting seed, a carrot plant can be up to 4 feet tall!

• Keep up with the Jones. Know what your neighbors are growing. Some varieties, especially those that are wind or insect pollinated, need a certain distance of isolation to ensure seed purity. For example, sunflowers must be isolated by ½ - 3 miles, and corn needs a distance of 2 miles. So, you may have to consider what your neighbors are growing. Others, like tomatoes, lettuce and beans might only need to be grown in different parts of your garden.

• So, what’s the hurry? Plan on your plants being in the ground longer.Imagine your favorite lettuce plant - you love eating the fresh crisp leaves of an early summer lettuce, and then pulling it out to make room for a heat-loving plant. Harvesting lettuce seed, however, requires leaving the plant in its spot, letting it bolt, flower and go to seed. All of this will take more time. But you may be surprised, and impressed, to see your 3 foot tall lettuce plants with delicate yellow flowers.

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Remember, some plants are easier to save seed from than others, so start simple. Doing your research in advance will save you time and energy in the garden later.

For more information on getting started with seed saving, check out Suzanne Ashworths classic book "Seed to Seed"