Can someone explain SEEDS to me?

Or several someone's... that is fine too.

What is Heirloom?

I am assuming there are quality differences to seeds? How do you tell this?

What is open-pollinated? GMO? Non-GMO?

Do you buy seeds now as you look at places like rareseeds.com and save for next year or is that a dumb idea?

Anything you can explain to me about this would be great...even the stuff you assume I will know...don't...I am like a kindergartener here...I know nothing.

Heirloom seeds are old variety, this link has a good explanation of heirloom seed and open-pollination.
Hybrid seed/plants were generally developed to discourage diseases, better yields and other desirable traits. This link has a lot of jargon but explains in general the basis of hybridization without a lot of politics. GMO/GEO Genetically modified, using DNA to achieve desired traits in the organism. There will be a quiz at the end of the week... just kidding!

Great....THANKS!

Camprn...that was really helpful info.

Is it unwise to buy seeds towards next year now?

middlemamma wrote:Camprn...that was really helpful info.

Is it unwise to buy seeds towards next year now?

Well I have do so in the past, the prices are right, but you may have lower germination rates. Somwhere on the forum I believe someone has posted seed viability by years of storage, maybe it was Boffer. Do a search, and I will look too, after I go harvest and eat some spinach! YUM!!!

Ok I will look for it!

as a P.S.: GM is usually just a way to speed up the process of hybridisation (though it can be used to introduce traits a hybridisation effort could not, like splicing in a gene from an animal into a plant or vice versa, to for example have a plant produce an animal protein for the pharmaceutical industry).

Hi,
What helps me to chose seeds is most heirloom plants/seeds will produce over a full gardening season instead of a couple of weeks. Use that trait to your advantage, for example if you want to can tomatoes chose a non-heirloom plant to crop all the produce in a short amount of time. However if you want a tomato for a salad or sandwich every once in awhile, pick an heirloom variety. Heirloom varieties generally have some trait that make them difficult to get to market, for example thin skin, easy to bruise... You can save seeds from year to year. I sometimes look for great bargains at the end of the growing season, but seed shopping is usually saved for a very cold day in January and a stack of glossy catalogs to brighten my day. Hope this helps.

Patty from Yorktown

Selecting/collecting seeds is one of the best aspects of gardening. It can be addictive!
This is my 1st year gardening more than just a few plants. I'll admit, I've gone overboard.
I planted mostly Heirloom tomatoes, and a few Hybrids for insurance.
The Heirloom seedlings are not as robust or hardy as the hybrids.
I'm already drooling over the Bakerscreek.com catalog for Fal/Winterl plantings. If you don't have this free catalog, you should order it.

I plan to collect seeds from my Heirloom tomatos for 2011.
Recently, I bought a trio of orange/red/& yellow bell peppers from the grocery store for $3.50. That's expensive, so I saved the seeds and hopefully next spring I can grow these colors.
I may plant some this year to see if they sprout.
It's so weird, I can hardly eat produce from the store w/ seeds, w/out wondering if I should save the seeds.

I have decided to start many of the seeds in self-watering containers, so I don't have to worry as much about the water. Much of my seed failure was due to improper lighting and over watering.

Good luck with your seed collecting!

Thank you Jennie for asking these questions. This information has been very helpful to me and I am sure many others -- newcomers and oldtimers -- will benefit too.

Have a good gardening day!

Claire