Saving Seeds: The Gardener's Guide to Growing and Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds

by Marc Rogers, Polly Alexander (Illustrator)

An alternate cover for this ISBN can be found: here


Enjoy a delicious bounty of heirloom vegetables every year. Marc Rogers guides you through the time-honored and cost-effective tradition of collecting seeds from this year’s harvest to grow next year’s crop. Learn how to select and store seeds from proven varieties of more than 100 common vegetables and flowers. Through saving seeds and growing heirloom plants you’ll not only have a thriving garden every summer, you’ll be saving money and preserving local flavors at the same time.

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, How To, Reference

185 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 1991

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Reviews

[Jake B-Y · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice guide to seed saving, absolutely perfect for folks who are saving seeds for the first time. I knocked down a star or two because 1) the advice is very dated (despite the deceptively modern reprint, the original text is older than I am!) and 2) it’s less comprehensive than I would prefer. There are some major vegetables that are left undescribed (such as mustard greens) and the flower focus is very much traditional garden standards. Given the turn in the last 10-20 years to native plant gardening, the lack of attention to species indigenous to North America is unfortunate.

Again, it’s a great introduction — but it’s super dated and needs some additional entries. I wish it was just a little more comprehensive, because the book really does fill an important niche between the amateur gardener and the professional seed saver. Recommended for someone just getting started!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent guide to basic seed saving information. It includes just enough botany to get you through the process with an accurate understand of what you're doing. Then it moves on to specific varieties of vegetables and flowers as grouped by plant families.

I borrowed this book from the library, but will be adding it to my home library for easy reference.

[Mark Banaszak · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does what you would buy it for. It explains how to save and process seeds from non-hybrid plants so that you can replant them next year.

[Sherri Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and informative but I liked the Heirloom one better

[Sharon Wilbur · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been used as a reference all summer this year. I saved seeds from one of my heirloom tomatoes, but the other didn't do as well in my garden so I didn't save.

This book is packed with instruction about how to save seeds, how long those seeds remain viable. Excellent source.

[weehideyhole hole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very thorough guide to all sorts of different seed saving methods for each individual type of fruit/veggie!

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 3 out of 5]

from when we were saving heirloom seeds

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

lots of detailed info, both general and plant specific.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

for now I will give this a 3 star rating...if the seeds I have saved produced next spring, I will give it a 5...if not...

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very thorough and I love the illustrations. There are also great resources in the back of the book.