There are many great reasons to garden; you can provide food and flowers for your own table; you can grow herbs to flavour your food and make tea; you can spend time outdoors interacting with nature.

The list is long and the reason a gardener gardens may well be unique to that gardener and the relationship that has developed between the gardener and the garden.

I garden for a number of reasons; I love to grow things, flowers, herbs, tomatoes and so on. I enjoy being outside, however, perhaps the main reason why I garden is that gardening is an holistic experience.

Why holistic? Gardening is a complete experience, for example when you create a garden you work with the elements, sun, earth, water and air as well as millions of tiny beings who live in the soil and all working together create a vital and healthy garden.

The seed which is both the beginning and the ending of the growing process allows you to participate directly in Life’s cycle. You start the garden by sowing the seeds you choose and nurturing them into adulthood.

You then, if you have planned properly, can harvest the fruits or flowers of your labour which include seeds which you can use to start next year’s crop.

If you want to save seeds, then watch the videos and check the links that accompany this hub, they will give you the details on how to successfully do so.

If you want to save seeds then before you plant decide which seeds you wish to save and plant an extra plant or two to enable this process. This way you can have your seed and fruit as well.

When I save tomato seeds I select the tomatoes that ripen the earliest and set them aside for seeds. We have a short growing season and early ripening is a desirable characteristic. I work with heritage seeds, for tomatoes, so the plants will breed true.

If you are growing hybrids which is fine then the plant you get from the seed may differ from the plant that collected the seed from, with flowers, unless colour is crucial this may not be a problem.

It does not matter whether you are saving, herb, flower or vegetable seeds, be sure to pick the plants that are the healthiest to collect you seed from this will increase your odds of getting strong plants the following season.

You cans tore your seeds in a cool dark place and they will keep well until the following season and often longer.

I use the vegetable keeper in our refrigerator until my wife complains that it is full of seeds and there is no room for food.

I place the seeds it a brown envelope and label it with variety and date saved.

Seeds bring you full circle in the garden and when you save and replant you own seeds you are participating directly in Life’s ebb and flow.