PDC LESSON 3.12 SEEDS – PROCESSING THE SEEDS FOR STORAGE

                     

                        

PERMACULTURE COURSE AGRO-ECONOMY

PDC LESSON 3.12 SEEDS – PROCESSING THE SEEDS FOR STORAGE

 

Processing the seed for storage

Cleaning-

 you can clean the seed either by a wet or dry method.

 Dry seed cleaning

 is the method used for seed that mature in a pod, husk or case such as beans, corn, lettuce and most garden flowers? If the rainy weather sets in before total maturity occurs the plant can be pulled up by the roots and hung upside down or laid on a table to thoroughly dry before processing the seed. Dry pods can be harvested straight of the bush.

Winnowing the seed

After rubbing and rolling the chaff away from the seed, the rubbish needs to be blown or winnowed away to clean up the seed.

Screening

is another way of cleaning seed. Kitchen sieves and colanders work very well, And it is good to have sieves of different gauges so as to adjust to differing seed size etc.

Wet cleaning

is used for plants that carry their seed in moist flesh such as tomatoes, rock melons and cucumbers.

•         Scoop the seeds out of the flesh into a large container of water and rub them vigorously. 

•         Collect seed with a sieve and run water over them to remove all the little bits of flesh. 

The clean seed need only to be dried on a plate until thoroughly dried.

Text from the roots, Elisabeth Ferkonia (Aus.) PDC studied with Bill Mollison,