Expert tips on collecting content and methods

Seed saving puts the gardener more in touch with the life cycle of a plant. It is also a way to break free from companies that copyright seeds, often limiting plant diversity. Saved traditional seeds can bring lost flavors back to the table and give new life to forgotten blooms. It can support biodiversity as climate change increasingly suffocates ecosystems.

And according to Bill Braun, co-founder and executive director of the Freed Seed Federation in Westport, it’s easy to give it a try.

“It doesn’t take a lot of space, and it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge,” Braun said. “It takes care, patience and attention, and that’s love, and that’s what it’s really about.”

According to Braun, up to 75 percent of the world’s seeds are subject to intellectual property rights, and seed saving is an unusual way to bring variety back into farming practices.

This can be very simple. Or complicated. It depends on your tolerance for surprises.

“You say, ‘Oh, I’ll just take some seeds from this and it’ll be great, right?'” he said. “And then you suddenly learn that there are techniques and isolation distances and cultural practices and genetic integrity and political reasons, and you’ve opened Pandora’s box. Our simple advice is to start with [a crop] that you love, because if you love it, you are more likely to care for it.”

A good place to start is to understand the basics of plant genetics and the plants you’re working with. Some plants self-pollinate, while others cross-pollinate. Self-pollinators are more likely to produce offspring that resemble themselves, but cross-pollinators, which can blend with traits from neighboring rows or even those of your neighbors, can produce unexpected results.

“If you save seed from a hybrid, you may not be able to guarantee the characteristics of the plant you take it from,” says Mark Congdon, director of agriculture at Gaining Ground, a nonprofit organic farm based in Concord.

“You can still enjoy the challenge and wait and see,” he said. “Some people like to do things like that and see what happens next season.”

The strategy of growing for seed saving often looks different than growing for consumption, says Heron Breen, an experienced seed saver from Maine.

For those new to seed saving, this process can seem a bit counterintuitive, Breen says, because growing plantable seeds can mean letting, say, a cucumber grow past the point of palatability to let its seeds mature.

“It’s a conscious exercise,” Breen said, “and there are no tricks.”

“The goal is not to make everything easy or to make money from every action,” he said. “The goal is to observe the life cycle of another living organism and maintain the supply [through] the ages.”

Identify and grow seeds from your strongest, healthiest plants, and it can help if you isolate the plants intended for seed, he said. Growing for seed means putting the plant through its entire lifespan. It will benefit from plenty of extra aeration as well as weeding.

Seed savers support plant diversity in small spaces, says Dr. Jessamine Finch, a research botanist at the Native Plant Trust in Framingham.

Seed banks around the world—like the one on a remote tip of Norway—save seeds designed to restore a decimated food system in light of a doomsday scenario. But saving seed from garden perennials is an easy way to bring this year’s plants back to life next year.

“If [you’re] If you have a black-eyed Susan or monarda planted in your garden, give it a try. Collect it, share it with your friends, take it to a seed library and share it in your community,” Finch said. Monarda, calamus and milkweed are all good perennial examples that are native to the Northeast and are a joy for novice seed collectors, she said.

To harvest seeds, you have to wait until they spread naturally from the plant, Finch says. Tap the seed head once the flower has faded. When the head develops and the seeds fall out easily when tapped (or when berries come off easily when the fruit is touched), Finch calls this the time of natural spread, or “seed release.” At this point, the seeds are ready for storage.

Echinacea, for example, is a flower that is easy to save seeds from. Cut off the head of the flower, dry it in a paper bag, and once dry, clean it and count the seeds.

“You can decide where they go,” Finch said. “You can grow them in pots. You can plant them very specifically in your landscape.”

By not harvesting some of them, you can preserve wildlife habitat and food over the winter.

In Massachusetts, plant researchers are working with state partners to harvest some of the seeds of rare plants.

“It’s not a substitute for protecting plants in the wild where they exist, but it can provide some insurance,” Finch said.

“If the population is 100 fruits, we will collect 10 of them every 10 years,” she said. (If you find there is a rare plant in your garden, leave it alone or contact an expert who will explain how you can help.)

Drying the seeds helps with preservation, as moisture causes mold. Silicate packets, which you can find in storage rooms and shoe boxes, can be helpful, but here’s a caveat: Not all seeds want to dry. Acorns, for example, cannot be dried before planting.

Braun suggested some good “starter plants” for the vegetable garden and gave his care suggestions:

● Beans (Phaseolus vulgaris, above) And Peas (Pisum sativum) are self-pollinating: leave the strongest pods on the vine until they are beige and dry them inside on a plate or baking sheet to open the pods.

● paprika (Capsicum annuum) are cross-pollinated: allow the fruit to fully ripen until it turns color; scoop out the seeds and dry them on a plate. If the seeds break instead of bending, they are ripe. Capsaicin, which produces heat, can be affected by cross-pollination, so isolate rows (at least 15 meters) if you want to limit variation.

● Grain like wheat, oats and “ancient grains” like spelt, einkorn and emmer pollinate themselves: break or beat dry flower heads over a bag or cut them off. Dry them inside on a plate or baking tray.

● Lettuce (lactuca sativa): Bolted lettuce is tough and bitter, but that means it’s time for seed. Let the strongest plants flower, and pinch off the seeds when white clouds appear. (Sometimes they’ll sprout a new variety right away!) Dry them inside on a plate or baking sheet.

But the element of experimentation is a bonus, Braun said.

“When you think of all the hands that have touched all the seeds and plants and evolved and adapted together over thousands of years, we’re basically jumping into this epic poem and writing the next line,” he said. “To ensure that future generations can continue this process and this sacred art, we need to leave them enough to draw on.”

Lindsay Crudele can be reached at [email protected]. Follow address on X @globehomesand subscribe to our free weekly newsletter at Boston.com/Address-Newsletter.