This is an extraordinary month on the calendar. Last week brought Easter for Western Christians (Orthodox Pascha follows), Passover and the end of Ramadan with Eid al-Fitr. April is also Earth Month, building toward Earth Day on April 22.
Whether you observe any of these or simply enjoy a long weekend, the common thread is spring in the Northern Hemisphere — and the ancient human impulse to put things in the ground and help them grow.
At F.W. Horch Sustainable Goods & Supplies, my former store in Brunswick, my colleague Brett Thompson used to tell customers that a calendar is the most important gardening tool. He had a point. If you want to save seeds this fall — so you can skip buying them next year or swap them with neighbors — the time to act is right now, while you’re deciding what to plant. You can’t save all seeds. Some grow true to type year after year. Others won’t, no matter what you do.
This week’s step is to understand the difference.
Open-pollinated, heirloom and hybrid
An open-pollinated variety, pollinated by plants of the same variety, produces offspring with the same characteristics as the parent. Grow a Cherokee purple tomato, save the seeds, plant them next spring, and you get Cherokee purple tomatoes again.
Heirloom seeds are open-pollinated varieties saved and passed down by gardeners for 50 years or more. All heirlooms are open-pollinated, but not all open-pollinated varieties are heirlooms.
A hybrid (labeled “F1”) is a cross between two distinct parents, bred for traits like disease resistance or uniform size. The first generation often performs well, but save the seeds and the offspring revert unpredictably. Hybrids aren’t bad — they have real advantages — but if seed saving is your goal, plant open-pollinated or heirloom varieties. That choice happens now, not in September.
Why this matters beyond your garden
Seed saving sits on the “food” pathway in the Sustainable Practice framework and connects to the “community” pathway as well. There’s a reason this article falls during a week dense with religious observance. Seeds and faith have always been tangled together.
The Passover seder plate holds bitter herbs that differ between Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions. Easter tables from Appalachia to Greece feature breads and greens tied to what people have grown locally for generations.
Even a backyard gardener with no religious affiliation participates in this pattern: choosing what to grow, tending it, saving the seed, handing it on. Heirloom names carry that history — mortgage lifter, from a West Virginia gardener who paid off his house selling tomato plants in the 1940s; dragon tongue, a Dutch bean older than our country. More than 90% of crop varieties have disappeared from farmers’ fields over the past century. Every gardener who saves open-pollinated seed wades against that current.
Choose savable seeds
Check your packets for “open-pollinated,” “heirloom” or “OP.” Steer clear of “F1” or “hybrid” for varieties you intend to save. Some crops make seed saving simple because they self-pollinate — tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans and lettuce.
Grow multiple varieties side by side and save clean seed from each. Select from your best plants, and over the years, you’ll develop varieties uniquely adapted to your garden.
Other crops — squash, corn, beets and the cabbage family — are cross-pollinated by wind or insects. To save pure seed, grow only one variety per species or separate them by distance. “The Seed Savers Exchange” publishes a free crop-by-crop chart with the details.
Not everything grows from seed. Apples, grapes, figs, blueberries, rosemary, sage and lavender are propagated by grafting, cuttings or divisions. A cutting shared over a fence is its own form of seed saving.
Where to find seeds and community
Seed libraries have spread through public libraries nationwide. Search the Community Seed Network to find one near you. For purchasing, Seed Savers Exchange, Southern Exposure, High Mowing, Baker Creek and our own Maine-based Fedco Seeds all clearly label what’s savable. Look at your packets this week. Swap out a hybrid or two.
Mark your calendar for the end of the season, when you’ll harvest not just food but the start of next year’s garden.
Fred Horch and Peggy Siegle are principals of Sustainable Practice. To receive expert action guides to help your household and organizations become superbly sustainable, visit SustainablePractice.Life and subscribe to One Step This Week. For more sustainable practices, visit suspra.com to order “Your Earth Share: Seven Pathways to Sustainable Living” in digital or paperback format, or pick up the book at your local bookstore.
Join Fred, Peggy and the Brunswick community at the 2026 Earth Day Festival in Brunswick from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, at Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School.
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