Bolted lettuce, flowering parsley, and violet borage blooms are scattered throughout Caitlin Daum’s garden. A resident of Northeast Portland's Cully neighborhood, Daum is one of a growing number of Portlanders who have transformed their front and back yards into a year-round kitchen garden.
Portland’s DIY gardeners have come up with creative gardening plans that allow them to grow an impressive amount of food within limited spaces. For most of these space-constrained urban farmers, when a crop goes to seed it’s time to pull it up and replace it with new starts. However, Daum and other front-yard gardeners are keeping some of their finished crops in the ground, allowing them to flower and go to seed.
“Letting plants flower makes a better habitat for bees and beneficial insects,” says Daum. It also provides the opportunity for a different kind of harvest–seeds.
Growing Interest in Seed Saving
In recent years, there has been a growing interest among Portland’s urban gardeners in harvesting and saving seeds. Horticulturalist Rachel Freifelder of Handmade Gardens has experienced the rising popularity firsthand through increased requests for her seed saving workshops. Another sign is the growing number of resources available for saving seeds, most notably the Northeast Portland Seed Library.
Housed in the Northeast Portland Tool Library, the Seed Library allows residents of Northeast Portland neighborhoods to check-out seeds to plant in their home gardens, with the expectation that the borrowers will later harvest their crop’s seeds and return them to the Seed Library. Membership and seeds are free.
Both Freifelder and Daum see Portland’s seed saving trend as a natural progression of DIY gardening. “The simplest reason that people are getting into seed saving,” says Freifelder, “is the satisfaction of making something yourself instead of buying it at the store.”
Self-Sufficiency at the Root of DIY Gardening
Daum feels that “there’s a tendency to want to be more self-sufficient,” when you’re doing something that you enjoy, like gardening. Gardeners may start the path toward self-sufficiency by growing their starts, then move on to making their own compost and soil. “Saving seed is just another step to being involved in the whole process,” says Daum, “owning the process instead of relying on someone who knows better than you to do it.”
Portland seed saving is a part of a larger global movement. World-wide, seed companies are diminishing the biodiversity of seed varieties, which means less varieties are available, and these select varieties are becoming more expensive and more susceptible to climate change, pests and disease. Over the past century, we have become dependent on monocultures of a few varieties that do really well under certain conditions.
“I’ve come to believe that the way the modern world is, doing anything for yourself is kind of revolutionary,” muses Rachel Freifelder, “and teaching somebody else to do something for themselves is even more revolutionary.” Whether you are just getting started or are looking to learn advanced seed saving techniques, workshop opportunities and resources abound.
Seed Saving Workshops
Growing Gardens
Seed Saving
Wednesday, September 8, 6-8 p.m.
Hands-on seed-saving workshop. Free for enrolled Home Garden recipients and open to the community for a sliding scale donation of $5-$20. Pre-registration required: Rodney@growing-gardens.org or 503.284.8420. The workshop address and directions will be provided when you sign up.
Handmade Gardens
Growing Seeds for Your Garden and Your Community
Sunday, September 12, 3-5 p.m.
4446 NE Going Street
Learn to grow and harvest your own vegetable seeds, plan your garden for seed growing and explore community-level seed sharing. $5 - $15 sliding scale, no one turned away. To register or for more info: 503-849-9466
Portland Nursery
Seed Saving with Vern Nelson
Sunday, August 29
5050 SE Stark beginning at 1 p.m.
Free workshop with The Hungry Gardener columnist, and garden consultant. Pre-register online
Your Backyard Farmer
Using Cover Crops and Saving Seed for Next Year’s Garden
Tuesday, September 14, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Lane Middle School, 7200 SE 60th Avenue
Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter both hold horticulture degrees, and they specialize small-scale urban farming. Individual classes are $35.
Seed Saving Resources
Northeast Portland Seed Library
Located at the Northeast Portland Tool Library
Redeemer Lutheran Church
5431 NE 20th Avenue
Hours: Saturday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. with extended summer hours on Wednesdays, 5:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
The Northeast Portland Tool Library and Seed Library is an all-volunteer library of home and garden tools, including seeds, which may be borrowed free of charge by Northeast Portland residents. The idea of checking out seeds is that once you have grown the plants that you harvest the seeds and return them to the library for others to use in future seasons. Membership is free to people over 18 who are residents of Northeast Portland.
Southeast Portland Seed Bank Project
A collective of urban farmers in Southeast Portland who "hope to create, through distributed and collaborative effort, varieties of crops that are well-suited to our soils, climate and farming methods in adequate quantities to meet the demand of local food security."
The Seed Bank Project has created a Perpetual Seed Kit that includes 10 packets of edible crops, plus simple instructions on growing, seed saving and plant science. According to the web site, The Seed Kits "are designed for an average SE garden of roughly 250 square feet (23.2 m²)." Check out the Big Garden Seed Kit for larger yards.
Sunroot Gardens
Offers Portlanders ways to participate in the growing of the food, including seed saving. Workshops and volunteer opportunities available. For more info: call 503.686.5557 or email SunrootCSA@riseup.net.
