Montgomery Seed Library

10/14/2026

🌼 Not all flowers are pollinated the same way—and that's one of the most important things to understand if you want to save your own seeds.

A plant's pollination method determines how easily it can cross with other varieties. Some crops, like peas, beans, tomatoes, and lettuce, are mostly self-pollinating, making them excellent choices for beginner seed savers. Others rely on wind or insects, which means pollen can travel between plants and create natural crosses. In some cases, gardeners can even hand-pollinate flowers to control exactly which plants produce seed.

🌱 Here's a simple guide:
• Self-pollinating – Mostly pollinate themselves, making them some of the easiest crops for beginners to save.

• Wind-pollinated – Pollen can travel long distances on the wind, so larger isolation distances are often needed.

• Insect-pollinated – Bees, butterflies, and other insects move pollen between flowers, increasing the chance of crossing between varieties.

• Hand-pollinated – Gardeners can transfer pollen by hand when they want complete control over which plants produce seed.

Understanding these differences helps you:
🌱 Save seeds that grow true to type
🌱 Know when isolation is needed
🌱 Preserve unique varieties for future generations
🌱 Become a more confident seed saver

Seed saving isn't just about collecting seeds—it's about understanding the biology behind them. Once you know how a plant is pollinated, you'll know exactly what it takes to save healthy, reliable seed year after year.

Content Note: We believe making seed-saving knowledge accessible to everyone is crucial for the environment right now. We’re 100% volunteer-run with a small team, and we currently use AI tools because we haven’t yet found a volunteer who can take on this work.

If you would like to help financially or with graphic design so that our work can be fully in alignment with our values, please get in touch. 🌱

10/04/2026

10/02/2026

09/28/2026

There's still some time to sneak a few quick crops into the garden in zone 7a! We're still sowing lettuce, mustards, radishes, spinach, and turnips this week.🥬🫜

As we head deeper into fall, we'll also be starting our garlic, perennial onions, and then sowing bulb onions in cold frames. 🧄🧅

See our full planting list:https://www.southernexposure.com/catalog/plantingdates.pdf

09/28/2026

Why do local seeds matter?

🌿 Every seed carries a story.

When gardeners save and share seeds that have grown successfully in their own region, they're helping create plants that become better adapted to local soil, climate, pests, and weather over time.

Local seeds don't just grow food—they strengthen communities.

By preserving local varieties, we:

🌿 Protect biodiversity

🌺 Preserve culturally important plants and their story

🐝 Support pollinators and healthy ecosystems

💪 Grow stronger, more resilient plants

🥕 Enjoy incredible flavour and nutrition

🫶 Keep our food system in local hands

Seed libraries make this possible by connecting neighbours through the simple act of saving and sharing seeds.

Every seed you save today helps grow a more resilient community tomorrow.

🌿 Find your local Seed Library and help keep locally adapted seeds growing for generations to come.

08/29/2026

𝐒𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟗: 𝐆𝐫𝐨𝐰 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞! 𝐖𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐫: 𝐓𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐂𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬
Native gardeners are making a positive difference on their properties and in their neighborhoods by supporting ecological function by choosing native plants for garden beds and plantings. Native gardeners can also increase their impact by championing native landscaping practices in their communities. Join Missouri Prairie Foundation Executive Director Carol Davit as she shares advocacy strategies and tools to help adoption of native landscaping in communities throughout the lower Midwest.

This free webinar, to be held via Zoom, will include a presentation and a live question-and-answer session. The webinar will be recorded, and a link to the recording will be sent to all registrants and posted to the MPF YouTube channel.

Wednesday, September 9 at 4:00 p.m. 1 GNPCP CEU. Register here: https://ow.ly/3tBB50ZFIn1

08/25/2026

🌱 What Does "True to Type" Mean?

When a seed grows true to type, the new plant looks and behaves like its parent.

That means it will produce the same:

🍅 Fruit or vegetable
🌸 Flower colour
📏 Size and shape
🥕 Flavour
⏰ Maturity time
🌿 Growth habit

For example:
You save seeds from a Waltham Butternut Squash

Next year...
✅ The plants produce Waltham Butternut Squash.
That's true to type.

But if those Waltham Butternut Squash were planted near Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, and you saved seeds from the butternut squash,...

Next year when you plant those seeds, they might be

❌ Different colours
❌ Different flavours
❌ Different sizes
❌ Different maturity times

The seeds are still alive—they're just no longer true to the original variety.

This is why understanding pollination is so important.

Some plants, like lettuce, peas,beans, and tomatoes, usually pollinate themselves, so they are much more likely to grow true to type. Peppers can be insect or self-pollinated.

Others, like squash and corn, cross much more easily and need isolation or controlled pollination if you want to preserve the variety.

🌱 Every heirloom variety we enjoy today exists because gardeners carefully saved seeds that grew true to type from one generation to the next.

07/27/2026

Is your lettuce bolting? Save the seeds!

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has a nice guide on how.

07/18/2026

Peas & Beans: Perfect Crops for Beginner Seed Savers

Peas and beans are some of the easiest seeds to save and grow.

They have perfect flowers, meaning their flowers contain both male and female parts, and they are self-pollinating. In many cases, pollination happens before the flowers even open, so they don’t rely on wind or insects to produce seeds.

Why They're Easy to Save
- Self-pollinate without help from wind or insects
- Very low risk of pollen coming from a different variety
- Seeds produce plants that look like their parents (true to type)
- Reliable and beginner-friendly seed-saving crops

Peas
- Peas are highly self-pollinating and rarely cross with other varieties. Because pollination usually occurs before the flowers open, saved seeds will reliably produce plants with the same characteristics as the parent plant.

Common Beans
- Most common beans—including bush beans, pole beans, and green beans—are also strict self-pollinators. Since pollination occurs within closed flowers, crossing between varieties is uncommon, making them easy for new seed savers.

The Exception: Runner Beans & Fava Beans
- Runner beans, such as Scarlet Runner, are different. They rely heavily on insect pollinators, especially bumblebees and carpenter bees. While they can still produce seeds, they are much more likely to cross with other runner bean varieties and often produce significantly higher yields when pollinators visit their flowers. If you grow more than one variety of runner beans or more than one variety of fava beans, you can still save the seeds. Just mark them as “Diverse mix” if sharing with others.

Harvesting
- Let the beans and peas dry completely on the plant before harvesting. 🌱
- Put completely dried shelled peas or beans in a labeled jar (include the common name and variety) in the freezer for one week to kill weevil eggs. 🥶