Where should I get seeds for my veggie garden?

We fully support shopping at local garden centers for vegetable garden seeds. Just know that you often won’t have as much choice in which varieties are available or the volume of seed in your seed packets to last you through the growing season (depending on the size of your garden).

There are many seed companies and organizations in the United States that value the preservation of biodiversity and prioritize the use of healthy soil amendments on their farms and in their gardens. Since 1975, for example, Seed Savers Exchange has led a movement to grow, save, and share heirloom seeds to protect biodiversity and preserve heirloom varieties and the stories that go along with them. There are other seed companies, such as Adaptive Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, High Mowing Seeds, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, and Territorial Seed Company that sell a variety of flavorful, colorful, and shorter season open pollinated varieties (cultivars whose seeds will have the same or very similar characteristics to their parents) that are capable of thriving in our unique high desert climate.

There are, of course, many hybrid varieties that have become gardener favorites! Just know that if you choose those seeds and would like to save seed from them, there is a slim likelihood of growing future plants with those same characteristics you love. Through saving the seed of open pollinated varieties each season, from our own high desert gardens, we can work towards better acclimatizing plants to our specific region.

At Bend Urban Gardens, we create personalized crop plans to help gardeners maximize their growing spaces and the (short, compared to many other regions of the world!) time available to us each season for plant growth. We mostly harvest plants before they have the opportunity to make seeds, since we eat their roots, stems, leaves and flowers. We then find ourselves seeking out seed each season for most of our veggie garden crops. Choosing even one crop to save seed from in your garden, though, and then sharing that seed with others, can get us closer to a more sustainable food supply for Central Oregon. You can share seed with friends, family, or other local gardeners (check social media groups for local seed swaps or organize one yourself)!

If you are new to seed saving, try starting with cilantro and dill. When your plants begin to bolt, or go through the next phase of their lifecycle and make flowers, leave them in your garden for pollinators to enjoy. Then, once the seed pods are dried out, cut the seed heads into a large paper bag and store in a cool, dry place for next season.

Spring Alaska Schreiner, Upingakraq (time when the ice breaks), is the owner and Principal Ecologist-Indigenous Agriculturalist of Sakari Farms (located in Tumalo), Sakari Botanicals (a value added product culinary and healing tribal business), and founder and former organizer of Central Oregon Seed Exchange (a unique Deschutes County based cold climate seed bank).

When growing plants for seed, Spring recommends, “Make sure you allow enough plants to go to seed to create strong diversity in your strain's genetics. Choose the healthiest, strongest, tastiest, most beautiful plants to be your seed stock. This small sacrifice now - not eating or selling that prize winning head of broccoli - will bring enormous strength for our future.”

As an enrolled member and shareholder of the Chugach Alaska Native Corporation and Valdez Native Tribe, Spring is proud to also house a unique NW Tribal Seed Bank at Sakari Farm, dedicated to regional and national Tribal Members only. For more inspiration from Spring about how seed saving efforts contribute to stronger climate resilience, check out this Oregon Climate and and Agricultural Network article.

For additional resources on how to save seed from your garden, check out additonal info shared by the Central Oregon Seed Exchange (even though, sadly, the Central Oregon Seed Exchange is no longer in operation).

Interested in ways to enjoy Sakari Farms’ value added products? Check out Spring’s recommendation for a super simple garden recipe with smoked paprika.