Co-hosted by Hansberry Garden & Nature Center and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the workshop will cover the basics that you need to get started with saving seeds, and “hopefully will inspire you to embark on a lifetime of further learning and experimenting!” says Goda. “We’ll focus on some common veggie crops like tomatoes, peppers, squash and beans, but we’ll also touch on native plants and herbs.”

“Seed saving,” Goda explains, “is when you let a plant live through its entire life cycle and then collect the seeds it makes and store them to plant them again in the future. It’s a beautiful and tactilely satisfying process. It is also important because it lets us gradually adapt plants to our specific and ever more chaotic environments, and helps us preserve varieties that are important to us. It also helps us build more meaningful relationships with plants and the humans that we can then share our saved seeds with! Truly an abundant and nourishing practice all around.”

Long an avid gardener, Goda Trakumaite became interested in seed saving and the full life cycles of plants through her work as an illustrator for the Plant Good Seed Company.

“I have been diving into this topic more intensively for the past six years, originally by volunteering with experienced seed growers, reading about the subject, and just learning by doing,” Goda explains. ” Currently I am growing flower and herb seed crops for the Plant Good Seed Co, and doing seed production for native perennials at New Moon nursery.”