Seed Saving Made Simple

Free crash course into seed saving. Everything you need to know to start saving and sharing seeds confidently and joyfully.

Cost: Free
Format: Pre-recorded webinar
Length: 90 minutes video
Access: Evergreen
Audience: Gardeners of all experience levels
Organization: Homestead Culture
Teacher: Noel Ruiz

I created this free seed saving video after teaching a seed saving workshop in our local community. The response from the gardeners who attended was so enthusiastic, and I had so much fun, that I decided to bring this content online and share it with our online community.

Seed Saving Made Simple helps gardeners have knowledge to get started saving seeds easily and confidently. This video covers a wide breadth of seed saving content in a format that is easy to digest for gardeners of all levels of experience.

We get into basic botany, pollination, seed cleaning, variety maintenance and how to save and share seeds in your local community. I also make sure to give you a heads up about the most common seed saving pitfalls, so you will know when and where you can be creative or lax, and where you probably will want to stick to the rules.

One of my personal favorite unique aspects of this seed saving crash course is the introduction to a few different styles of seed saving, such as landrace gardening, aka adaptation gardening. You have choices and I want you to know about them!

This video presentation is geared to gardeners and seed savers of all levels, from people who’ve never saved seeds before to advanced gardeners. I think you’ll get a lot out of it, and it’s free, so go have a look!

Seed School Online

How to harvest seeds to transform your health and grow resilient fruits & veggies… even if you’ve never gardened before.

Cost: $29
Format: Pre-recorded webinars and supplemental material
Length: Seven weeks as 1.5 hour videos
Access: Evergreen
Audience: Gardeners, teachers, new seed growers
Organization: Urban Farm U
Teacher: Bill McDorman

Bill McDorman is an expert seed saver, elder, seedkeeper and an inspiring speaker. He is one of my personal seed heroes and after taking this course I personally recommend it to any gardener. Bill’s experience lies in his decades of growing seeds through his seed companies and non-profit organizations.

In Seed School Online, Bill’s lectures offer wisdom and knowledge, as well as heartfelt inspiration and motivation. He blends the practical and the art of seed saving by avoiding dogma and encouraging experimentation and discovery.

The content is arranged as 7 primary lectures covering: Creative seed saving, magic of seed saving, history of the seed industry, genetics and selection, pollination and breeding, harvest and storage, wild seeds and seed enterprises and more. Also included are questions and answers as well as bonus content.

This course is a great launching point for anyone that wants to learn the fundamentals of seed saving, before embarking on their life long journey into seed saving. Be prepared to be very inspired by Bill’s lectures!

Please note, the course is a bit older and the recordings and format show their age a bit, which I believe is why the price has been reduced substantially from what it used to cost. But the content is timeless and well worth the price. I came away with more knowledge and incredibly inspired.

Seed Seva

A holistic, indigenous permaculture based approach to seed stewardship which honors the many layers of seed culture.

Cost: $197
Format: Videos, audio, text, supplemental material and seasonal mentorship
Length: A full growing season
Access: Evergreen, self paced
Audience: Gardeners, eaters, activists, teachers & other learners
Organization: Sierra Seeds
Teacher: Rowan White

Rowan White is one of my personal seed heroes. She is a skilled seed saver and educator who has dedicated her life and career to preserving important indigenous heritage seeds through Sierra Seeds and Indigenous Seedkeepers Network, and mentoring new seedkeepers.

Seed Seva goes far beyond the average seed saving course, in that it offers a whole season of materials as well as personal mentorship. The course is taught by Rowan White and includes guest lectures and interviews from other skilled seed keepers.

Through her indigenous perspective, Rowan’s seed saving course not only offers technical skills, but guides students through kinship, reciprocity, interconnection, relationship, cultural stories, rematriation and more.

Personally, I have gratitude for every message that Rowan puts into our culture, be it written or spoken, because she is transparent about her thoughts and experience through seed stewardship, and also healing deep cultural wounds from an unhealthy culture. I look up to Rowan for all of the generous offerings and teachings she continues to bring forward for a healthier future.

Seed Seva is on my wish list for continuing my education around seed stewardship.

Adaptation Gardening

Discover the art and science of growing locally adapted, nutrient-dense food. Free online seed saving course compliments the popular book Landrace Gardening.

Cost: Free / Donation
Format: Videos, text and photos
Length: 53 lessons organized in 8 chapters
Access: Evergreen, self paced
Audience: Gardeners, seed producers
Organization: Going to Seed
Teacher: Joseph Lofthouse

Joseph Lofthouse is another one of my seed heroes. Through his revolutionary book Landrace Gardening, this humble farmer is transforming the way modern gardeners and farmers all over the world approach seed saving. If you’re curious, you can learn more about landrace gardening in this article.

I like to call Joseph Lofthouse the Masanobu Fukuoka of seed saving. In case you’re not familiar with Fukuoka’s work, he was the Japanese farmer who brought the revolutionary idea of natural farming through his book One Straw Revolution in the 1970’s. Lofthouse and Fukuoka have a lot in common: their science background, growing up in farming families, and their drive to partner with plants and nature to find more natural, peaceful, productive and heartful alternatives to conventional practices after feeling heartbreak and dis-ease after witnessing the “conventional way”.

This beautiful, generous online course is meant to compliment the book Landrace Gardening. While I think students would get a lot out of the course by itself, I highly recommend reading the book first. It is an easy read, and chances are, it will fundamentally change the way you think about seed saving.

Landrace Gardening (and this course Adaptation Gardening) is culture shifting and healing through the practice and art of saving seeds. It breaks convention in the most elegant way, freeing us from needing to control our seeds. It helps us learn how to achieve locally adapted seeds faster and more successfully, even in the most challenging garden conditions. It encourages sharing, community building and joy. If that sounds good, I really hope you read Landrace Gardening and take this companion course.

The Adaptation Gardening seed saving online course was created in partnership with Going to Seed, a wonderful non profit whose mission is to offer free education around seeds and local adaptation.

Seed Saving for Abundance

Learn how to harvest, process and store homegrown seeds with confidence and joy. Enjoy high quality seeds for planting, eating or sharing with community.

Cost: $79
Format: Text, photos & videos
Length: 61 lessons organized in 12 modules
Access: Evergreen, self paced
Audience: Gardeners, homesteaders, new seed growers
Organization: Homestead Culture
Teacher: Noel Ruiz

I created this seed saving course to share my knowledge around seed saving. Through our family’s part time homestead based seed business, my sweetheart and I have spent the better part of a decade harvesting, processing, saving, stewarding and sharing seeds from plants that bring us joy.

Seed Saving for Abundance offers the best of our knowledge and skills in a rich online resource. This seed saving course is unique in that offers a deep dive into seed processing. Unlike many seed saving courses, we don’t just stick to annual vegetables, we also look at flowers, herbs, fruit and berries, including biennials and perennials as well.

Honoring that seed saving is a creative practice, this course encourages observation and experimentation. Rather than only giving specific recipes for specific plants, Seed Saving for Abundance offers a robust framework for saving seeds. Having a toolkit full of options to choose from allows you, the seed saver, to choose how you interact with each plant and seed so that you can develop your own personal style of seed saving.

“Abundance” refers not only to the abundant quality seeds that you will be able to grow and harvest for planting, eating and sharing—it also reflects our abundant joy and love experienced through aligning with seeds.

This course outlines the methods we use to harvest, process and store the seeds our family grows. With numerous examples, it also serves as a wonderful reference to refer back to, whether from the garden or as you’re planning your season ahead.

Seed Saving Essentials

Learn how to save seeds like a pro and grow next year’s garden from this year’s harvest!

Cost: $29
Format: Live webinar, supplemental PDF
Length: 90 minutes
Access: Live zoom, then 1 month access to recording
Audience: Gardeners of all experience levels
Organization: Joe Gardener
Teacher: Joe Lamp’l

You may have heard of Joe Gardener, the host of Growing a Greener World and host of the gardening podcast The Joe Gardener Show.

Joe also offers gardening education through his website, including masterclasses in live webinar format. Joe’s Seed Saving Essentials is a seasonally available live webinar that offers a thorough introduction to seed saving.

Seed Saving Essentials offers a foundation for seed saving that covers sourcing seeds, pollination, harvesting, cleaning, isolation and germination testing, as well as his tried and true ways to organize and store seeds. Joe also offers seed cleaning examples, common seed saving mistakes to watch out for and more. There is a 30 minute seed saving question and answer session at the end of the webinar.

Joe brings a lifetime of gardening experience to his seed saving course. His passion for gardening and teaching are contagious and his joy for sharing knowledge and inspiration are apparent in all his content and offerings.

Please note that the page says the sale has ended, but you can expand the “View details” link at the top of the page and then click the “view all event details” to view the course overview. If it sounds interesting, follow Joe on Eventbrite or follow one of his social channels to be notified when the class is being held again next fall.

Seed Saving with Will Bonsall

50-year seed saver shows you step-by-step, how to save seeds from your garden plants year after year, so you never have to buy seeds again.

Cost: $199
Format: Videos and supplemental PDF
Length: 3+ hours video
Access: Evergreen or membership based
Audience: Gardeners of all experience levels
Organization: School of Traditional Skills
Teacher: Will Bonsall

Will Bonsall has been saving seeds for over 50 years and through his Scatterseed Project he has collected, maintained and distributed thousands of varieties of plants. Will is passionate about maintaining diversity of seeds and preserving rare and culturally important heirloom seeds.

Seed Saving with Will Bonsall is a comprehensive seed saving course that offers foundational seed saving knowledge including variety maintenance, sourcing seeds, types of seeds, pollination and selection, as well as instruction and examples for harvesting, processing and storing seeds.

Will offers practical instructions for saving seeds from some common food plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, grain and corn.

Drawing from his invaluable experience gained through decades long devotion to seed preservation and the Scatterseed Project, Will shares examples of storing seeds as a personal or family seed bank for resilience and preservation, and inspires sharing seeds with community.

Virtual Seed School

Learn practical knowledge on how to harvest, process, store, and save seeds in this six week online seed saving course.

Cost: $90-$110
Format: Live Zoom
Length: Six weeks in 1.5-2 hour sessions (Sept-Nov)
Access: Live sessions, then evergreen recordings
Audience: Gardeners
Organization: Seed Savers Exchange

Perhaps you’ve already heard of Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), the non-profit organization dedicated to maintaining and preserving seeds of important heirloom varieties. In case you haven’t, they facilitate a seed exchange, a huge directory of individual seed savers who exchange seeds among themselves in a peer-to-peer fashion. They also have a farm where they grow, maintain and preserve many heirloom varieties themselves, many of which they offer in the exchange and the most popular of which they offer for sale in their online seed store.

Seed Savers Exchange also offers a wide variety of education around seeds and seed saving through their online content, in person education and events, as well as online training in Virtual Seed School.

Virtual Seed School is a thorough introduction to seed saving presented as a six week online course. The curriculum is organized into 6 topics: Botany of seed saving, harvesting and cleaning seeds (dry processing & wet processing each as its own session), seed quality and storage, growing and saving seeds with regional experts, and connecting to community.

In this course you’ll learn from a variety of experts and professionals who have learned from years of experience through their dedication to saving and preserving heirloom seeds.

In addition to the primary educational content, Seed School includes social time with instructors and participants, as well as time for questions and answers. Students also receive a copy of The Seed Garden book, Seed Savers Exchange’s comprehensive seed saving book as a required reading to complement the online course, as well as additional digital supplemental educational content.

Since the course is live event in the Fall, it may not be open for registration by the time you read this. You may sign up for notifications at the bottom of the course page.

Hayati

Learn how to become a seedkeeper of heritage seeds. Learn to grow a crop from seed, tend the crop and save seeds from it through a full growing season.

Cost: $0-$50
Format: Readings, worksheets and mentorship
Length: 6 months
Access: Monthly resources, then evergreen
Audience: “All displaced people who are seeking to interact with and grow with their culture through seed work, and most people on earth are displaced.”
Organization: Reyhan Herb Farm
Teacher: Sama Mansouri

Based out of San Francisco Bay Area, California, Reyhan Herb Farm grows Iranian food for market and grows and sells seeds of traditional Iranian varieties through their online seed store. They also offer seed stories, education and growing notes for many traditional varieties.

Hayati (Persian for of the backyard, or my life) is a mentorship based seedkeeping program offered through Reyhan Herb Farm and taught by the founder, farmer and seed steward Sama Mansouri. It is application based and intended for urban/suburban backyard gardeners or new farmers alike who want to learn how to maintain heritage seeds.

The six month long seed saving course and mentorship guides students through the entire season including planting, growing, observing, harvesting, cleaning and storing seeds for a few select varieties of heritage seeds. A group chat is also included to share experiences, questions and support with other mentees.

In the Hayati seed saving course, students start the season off by choosing a track based on their experience level and interests: Easy (bean track), Medium (basil track) or Hard (tomato track). Within each track, all students will grow three heritage varieties, of which seeds will be supplied by the mentor, Sama. Throughout the season, students are guided how to plant, tend and save seeds from the three varieties within their track. Students will learn how to maintain, or preserve heritage or heirloom varieties through seedkeeping practices.

This course follows a seasonal timeline and is only available for purchase at the beginning of the season. Check the course page for enrollment time in late winter, or inquire directly with Reyhan Herb Farm.

Before I Send You On Your Way

I hope you came away from this article more inspired about your seed saving education!

Please don’t be shy, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought, what resonates with you! Do you know about a good online seed saving resource that didn’t make it on this list? Share it with us below!

Seed saving is a lifelong journey. Most of us moderns weren’t born into a family of seed savers who passed on knowledge for countless generations. With the help of generous, passionate seed stewards and seedkeepers who carry the torch and share their knowledge, we too can save seeds and carry the honor and responsibility that comes with them.