One of the best feelings in the world is the satisfaction and awe that comes with winnowing seeds. You take a bucket of seeds dirty with so much chaff and dust that you can barely see the seeds. You pour that mixture into the wind. The wind blows away all the light dusty bits and … More Seed winnowing setup ?????
Some seeds, some fans, some bins … and you get some some clean seed for your Jang seeder and some greens for you salad mix and some flowers for the bees and more seed for you! p.s. we’re not cleaning Arugula with the fans, it’s some other brassica green but it’s the same story … … More Some seeds, some fans, some bins …
Back in November, I showed you how to extract seeds from squash. (All it takes is an axe and vacuum cleaner.) Today let’s talk about how to dry those seeds! (I know I’ve skipped over the actual seed cleaning part but I can’t find any great pictures of our cleaning. We’ll have to wait till … More Drying Squash Seeds
Here is a video that Ben Gable from the Real Seed Company sent me of their DIY seed cleaner: Open-Source, DIY Seed Cleaner Plans are also available on their site If you want to see more DIY seed cleaning equipment, you can view two of my previous post that include the air columns that Patrice … More The Real Seed Catalogue DIY Seed Cleaner
This post is a little late coming … On August 25th, 2010, the Eastern Canadian Organic Seed Growers Network (ECOSGN) hosted a field trip to Greta’s Organic Gardens in Ottawa, Ontario. The visit was broken up into A little about Greta, A field walk, A tomato taste test, A peek inside Greta’s seed workshop, and … More Visiting Greta’s Organic Gardens
Lettuce is the other seeed crop that took me years to learn how to clean well (radishes being the first). The basics are like other dry seeded crops (thresh, screen and winnow ad nauseam) but to do a good job I’ve had to pay a lot of attention to the threshing and final screening. (If … More Cleaning Lettuce Seed
On my last post, Xander commented on the bucket I was using to winnow radish seed. The bucket in question in one of the 2011 additions to my seed cleaning arsenal. Here a few shots of this bucket in action: Restricting seed and chaff flow rate I use this modified bucket to restrict the amount … More Special Seed Winnowing Bucket
As a new seed saver I used to work delicately with seed crops to avoid any damage and minimize seed loss. This worked well for plants like arugula that have seed that shatters easily and light chaff. But radishes, with their big spongy pods that squished before shattering and left pieces of pod the same … More Saving Radish Seed With Gusto!
In my early seed-saving days, I’d thresh and I’d winnow but I just couldn’t get my seeds as clean as when those that came from a seed packet. Over the next dozen years, meeting experienced seed growers, reading piles of seed production books, and attending whatever seed workshops I could find; I gleaned many pearls … More 10 Steps For Getting Seed As Clean As Possible
As I started this post, I realized I haven’t shared much about our bean production this year. That kind of surprised me since we grow 100-150 lbs of beans a year and spend a good part of September cleaning bean seeds. Why don’t we catch up and first look at different types of bean seed … More Saving Bean Seeds