Winnowing Seeds

cilantro seed

I’m turning into my mother. Not that that’s bad. (Mom, if you are reading this, I love you!) I’m getting thrifty. My mom excels at thrifty. Since I was a kid, embarrassingly taking my lunch to school in an old bread bag, she has pretty much rocked the thrift world. Now we think of thrift as being “green” or “economically conscious”, but it was just the way she was raised. And I was raised. And that sh*t hits you like a brick as you grow older.

The excitement I felt as I discovered that I could use an old plastic sled to winnow and save seeds for next year, or for my spice rack, was a little scary. Double duty thrift. At any rate, saving seeds does make sense. It is green, if you put the dried seeds in a re-used plastic baggie or envelope. And it is of course economical! There is a lot of information out there about winnowing, using more "conventional" tools. Check some of them out!

• Screening and Winnowing
• Home Threshing
• Serious Seed Cleaning Contraption

I wrote a bit more about my version of thrifty winnowing, and saving seeds in my online blog for Madison Magazine. There’s even a video (mom, it’s on a site called You Tube on that thing called the “internet”:). Check it out. And then you can tell me that Mom always knows best.