Seed Saving in Oregon
By 2030 the USA is expected to see the organic seed market hit $2 billion.
Have you ever thought about where your seeds come from?
Or, if you’re not buying seeds, where the starters from the nursery came from?
In the Summer of 2025 I lived on a small organic farm in Oregon. The farm grows Ayurvedic herbs for a large herbal product company, produce for seed companies and flowers for restoration projects.
The Pacific Northwest grows a large portion of America’s crops for seed. The weather is favorable for many crops- long growing seasons are needed for large crop yields, and the area I visited has bans or restrictions on GMO’s. This is important because GMO crops can transfer seeds and chemicals through wind and water, which would ruin an organic farmer’s crop. As of 2023, cultivation of GMO crops is banned in a handful of cities or counties in the states California, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, and Washington.
Removing cucumber seeds
We pick the ripest, most mature cucumbers for the most seed yield. Most cucumbers are over a foot long and are yellowing or even starting to rot.
In order to get seeds fruit/vegetables/produce have to come to full maturation. For us on the farm this means we’re picking the biggest cucumbers and zucchini, the most rotten tomatoes and peppers, and the driest flowers and beans.
Plants I personally worked with this summer for seed saving:
Milkweed
Zinnias
Cosmos
Lettuce
Cucumber
Tomatoes
Bell Peppers
Jalapeños
Anaheims
Ashwagandha
Tulsi
Clary Sage
Seed saving is something that you can also do at home with some planning and care. While it may be tempting to chop down dying plants in the garden, allowing the plant to finish it’s lifecycle will give you an abundance of seeds. Some plants may even self-sow and you won’t have to do any work!
Our goal was 50 pounds of seeds. We filled this bucket up many times.
Seed saving is important because it preserves genetic diversity, increases food security, and allows you to take your crops
Side note on GMO’s-
I personally try to avoid GMO food, but living in America it’s next to impossible to avoid it all together. Corn, soy, sugar from sugar beets, and canola are in most processed foods, and much of the GMO food grown is going to feed animals.
While the ‘organic’ certification is not perfect, I prefer knowing my food is not sprayed with massive amounts of pesticides and herbicides.
Monsanto, the producers of GMO' foods were also responsible for creating Agent Orange, an herbicide used in the Vietnam War, that likely contributed to my grandfather’s pancreatic cancer and early death.
So, I choose organic, non-gmo, or local food whenever possible and avoid processed foods. Some foods will say ‘bioengineered’ and that indicates that it contains GMO crop.
