Redwood Seeds Blog
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Brassica Basics: Seed Saving 101
Listen up here! This is what you need to know if you want to save brassica seed in your garden and keep the varieties pure. Pay attention to scientific names. These are the latin names that all living plants, animals, insects and fungi have. This is the basic rule of thumb: any vegetable that has the same genus and species names can cross pollinate. For example cabbage is Brassica oleraceae and broccoli is also Brassica oleraceae. The first name is the genus and the second name is the species. Read more »
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Bell Bean Cover Crop
The act by legumes of 'fixing' nitrogen has always seemed like magic to me. Nitrogen makes up 78.1% of the air we breathe and is essential to plant life. How does this gas get converted into a usable plant food? Well, that is where chemistry and 'magic' come into play. Read more »
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A Seedy Challenge and our new site...
Can you identify the seeds used to create this mandala?To celebrate our new website we are presenting this seed challenge. The first 15 people to correctly ID 10 of the 13 seed types will receive 15% off any seed order. You can view the mandala on our website www.redwoodseeds.net. The mandala is part of the slide show or click the thumbnail above.Email us your answers. Please share this contest far and wide!Read more »
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Grow Quinoa
Why eat quinoa? We love its nutty flavor and fast cook time. It is high in protein, about 14-18%, as well as calcium, magnesium and iron. Quinoa is also gluten free and contains all the essential amino acids.Read more » -
Tools of our Trade: Seed Saving
Let's start with what you don't need to save seeds. You don't need a fancy set of screens to save seeds and you don't need expensive machinery. So what do you need? First, and most importantly in my mind, you need creativity. Each year during seed saving season we pioneer new techniques and find new 'tools' to make processing seeds more efficient. Included in our seed saving tool kit are the following: baby swimming pool, window screens, fans, wheelbarrow, bucket, shovels (the blade on one of our shovels is actually broken- it is great for chopping up tomatoes in buckets!),... read more »
