Why select the 50 seeds pack?

My (Scott's) current focus is growing top quality seed and regional adaptation of varieties. This grew from our homestead gardening that already incorporated seed saving to preserve varietal diversity and a focus on staple crops to maximize our family's food security that led Eleanor to incorporate a seed business.

Growing for 'food' requires seed stocks in quantities larger than we can produce.  As a result, if significant eating is your goal, you will need to perform several grow outs to produce the quantity of seed needed.   I started by offering the 50 seeds for $6 as it let me offer many more varieties than if I wait until I had 7 grams or more to offer.   Those 50 seeds are closest siblings to the ones I will be planting, I can do no better.  I consider the 50 hand chosen seed choice ideal for those who want to get a jump ahead in plant selection and breeding.

With precious and rare seeds, broadcast planting is too risky.  Each seed is individually dropped into a furrow:

These pictures from our early days in ~2016 are smaller plantings than today, but the concept and manual labor hasn't changed that much.  The precious seeds are then covered with soil mixed with a bit of compost to help the young plants emerge from our high clay content soil:

This process is repeated in a careful pattern, alternating between wheat, barley, emmer, ... so there is no unauthorized crossing between patches. In 2017, I grew more than 30 kinds of wheat and 30 kinds of barley:

It took a few years to find a wooden label/stake that consistently survived the whole season, remaining legible without becoming misplaced:

Weeding:

 

Bird Netting:

 

I harvested with a hand knife, stem by stem.  This allowed me to harvest at the peak of ripeness and stay ahead of foraging wild critters.  In the early days, I passed through the plots about every 2 to 3 days, paying attention to the weather to make sure I collecting everything possible.    These days, I make one early harvest just to reduce my risk to disasterous weather or critters by collecting enough ripe grain to provide a chance to replant next year.  Then, when the plot is ripe; I cut the rest.

After cutting, I tie or tape the bundles with careful labeling.  I like to mark the name name twice, once as the variety name and once as the SKU code I use for tracking.  I also add the harvest date and plot location.   After an initial drying indoors with plenty of ventilation, here are some of the bundles awaiting hand threshing:

 After threshing and winnowing, comes weighing (for my record keeping), and packaging:

With a tilted soup bowl full of seeds, I find my letter opener the ideal tool to push each 'chosen' seed over the end into the dipping sauce bowl:

The end result yields an envelope of the healthiest seeds labelled: "P/S" for Plant in my Garden and offer for Sale. I also set aside seeds for Trade at seed swaps.

 Besides the equipment used, a lot of hand labor has gone into those 50 seeds!