The following is an excerpt from an article, “Be Fruitful and Save Seeds,” by Hazon friend, Rachel Kriger, which originally appeared in Tikkun Magazine [Sept./Oct. 2007].

Welcome to the beginning of the end of the growing season. This is the time of year where your weekly share of produce will be most abundant. Since the hard frost has not hit yet, we still have the summer crops and the beginning of the fall crops. This time of year is great for freezing, canning, pickling and seed saving.

What is seed saving? It is the process of extracting seeds from the best selection of our favorite, most resilient crops so that we can plant new seeds in the spring. This is what people did before seed catalogues and garden stores and supermarkets. When we lived off the land, we had to ensure that we would have crops every year.

Every vegetable crop has its own inner survival instincts; and as its growing season ends, each plant produces seeds to ensure its life in future generations. Agrarian humans have developed the knowledge to know how to extract the seeds, cure them and store them. They have even understood how to select for tolerance against pests or weather conditions, or simply for what tastes the bests and has good looks.

When we think in terms of sustainability, the overall goal of seed saving is to maintain a diverse gene pool of many varieties of vegetables that are most suitable to our climate, our land and our taste buds. As a modern American, I choose to save seeds to remember this dying art form and to understand what used to be knowledge and common sense. And I save seeds because it keeps me connected to my own food cycle. When I have seeds and I know how to grow them and when my environment allows for abundance, I am not dependent on major corporations for my food supply.

Moreover, vegetables are not just part of the food pyramid to fulfill my “daily requirements”. They are living stories of the small plots of land upon which I have learned how to grow. Seeds also make wonderful gifts and great metaphors for life. When I plant seeds in the ground, I think metaphorically about what ‘seeds’ I am planting in my life. I know that not all of them will germinate, grow and produce more seeds. When I am blessed with the opportunity to harvest seeds, I can see the fruits of my labor and receive encouragement to keep doing this dance.

To read the full article in Tikkun, click here. 

Rachel Perlman Kriger grew up going to Jewish Day School and eating “organic.” After graduating from Wesleyan she was a farming apprentice. In 2005 she served as the farm manager for the ADAMAH program. Rachel is currently a student acupuncturist at Tai Sophia Institute in Maryland. Please feel free to email her at thatsthepoint@gmail.com.