Missouri Conservation Heritage Card

Heritage Card

Permit Type: 

Fishing

Hunting

Resident Type: 

Anyone

Permit Length: 

Lifetime

Permit Price: 

$2.00

Permitted Species: 

None

Additional Info: 

Provides customer id information, and can also be used as verification of being hunter certified, if the hunter education number is printed on the card. This is NOT a permit.

Make sure to get the Heritage Card when you buy your fishing and/or hunting license. You get great discounts on purchasing trees and other things. It is only $2.00 for a lifetime! Check out the Missouri Department of Conservation at http://mdc.mo.gov/permits/heritage-card or call 1-800-392-4115

Heritage Card Discount

Holders of the Missouri Conservation Heritage Card can receive a 15 percent discount up to $20 off their seedling purchases. To receive the discount, write your card number on the order form. Heritage Card discount does not apply to handling charges and sales tax. Heritage Cards can be purchased for $2 wherever hunting and fishing permits are sold. The card, similar in appearance to a credit card, makes applying for permits easier by storing registration information on a magnetic strip. The card also allows the owner to receive a 15 percent discount on selected retail merchandise sold at Conservation Department facilities. To order a Heritage Card by phone, call 1-800-392-4115.

How to: Save Heirloom Tomato Seeds

Saving your own tomato seeds is rather fun and has all sorts of benefits. Preserving heirloom seeds, ensuring a supply of your own favorites for next year, helping protect seed diversity, making a giant mess of stinky fermenting goo, it’s all there! It’s also pretty easy.

 As part of our seed selling business we save fairly large quantities of tomato seed but the process is the same whether you are saving from a pile of heirloom tomatoes or from a paticularily tasty one you just sliced up for lunch.

First things first, you need to get your tomato seeds out of the tomato.  You can slice them in half, in quarters, scoop some out of the one you’re eating or just use my preferred method: Squishing. A serrated grapefruit spoon makes a great seed saving tool, especially when dealing with smaller cherry tomatoes. Just cut them in half and scoop out the inside of the tomatoes leaving the skin and outer flesh behind.

Next the seed pulp is ready to be combined with water in a container.  Glass jars are simple and food safe, but yogurt containers and tupperware are perfectly suitable. The only really important factor is that the container needs a lid. It’s going to get stinky so the lid is not optional.

Make sure to label each variety as you go as tomato seeds all look very similar and the colored pulp is going to break down.
Place them out of direct sunlight and walk away for a few days. You’ll start to see the good seeds settle from the pulp down to the bottom of the container.

Now things will start to ferment. This fermentation process is breaking down the protective coating on each seed. After a few days and once you have a good layer of fuzzy stuff, dump it off, leaving the seeds in the bottom of the jar.  Any seeds at the top are duds, the good stuff is all at the bottom.  Top up the jar with some clean water and let it all happen again.  Once the seeds are starting to settle cleanly at the bottom they are done. Be careful not to leave things unsupervised for too many days as the seeds could start germinating.

Once the seeds are ready, pour off any remaining pulp and mold.

Using a strainer, give your seeds a final rinse. They should be looking rather naked by now.

Now you just need to let them dry.  A stack of clean rags or old tea towels work best, as paper towels sometimes stick.

Once again, label your seeds. Package them up a few days later when they’re perfectly dry and you’re set.  Next spring you’ll have more tomato seeds then you can plant.  Trading them with fellow seed savers and planting a few extra for gardening neighbors is highly recommended.

DIY Water Hose Storage / Cleaning Station

This is just the neatest idea & is so handy for the garden! Your diy wash station that is so simple & get's the water hose of the ground. Make it your own.  This example shows a galvanized  pail screwed to a 2 x 4 that is in the ground with a bird house on the top. Roll the hose around the pail & inside a place to store brushes, small garden tools, and a great place to hang a towel! I just love it & is gonna be a summer project for me!

Save Money by Saving Seeds: Here's How to Do It!

We're edging into the Winter months, but Spring is on the mind for those who are looking ahead at gardening and planting time, so here's some tips to keep in mind when growing your crops this coming up 2013 year for saving seeds for the future. You can save $ money $ and can make a little, too!

7 Reasons to Save Seeds:

1. Money Savings. When you buy seeds, invest in high-quality seeds for the first planting, then you will have high quality seeds in a much higher volume to save, thus saving you more money in the long run.
2. Seed Security. Instead of industry corporations who have discontinued some varieties of seeds to sell lucrative hybrid seeds, saving your own seeds gives you seed security in the fact that you control the supply of the seed variety you chose to plant, especially now hard to find seeds that aren't always available in the catalog (perhaps offer extra seeds to sell to other interested gardeners thus making you more money).
3. Regional Adaption. When you save seeds grown on your land and in your climatic environment, you are developing over time, better adapted varieties best suited to your soil and climate conditions and growing practices.
4. Consistent Quality: Corporations use open pollination in their seed crops, which means that their seed packets may contain several off-type seeds because they rarely rogue their fields for bad or poorly growing plants, which then pollinate and add to the seed crop. In saving your seeds and doing the picking, cleaning and hoeing yourself, you pull out the suckers, the weaker plants, etc and thus provide a more consistent pollination to your own seed crop that has better quality seeds each time you plant.
5. The Joy of Learning.  The more seeds you save the more you learn about botany and the plant kingdom, this is a great thing for kids to get into especially for science projects!
6. Explore Heirloom Varieties. Some people like to grow heirloom varieties because doing so gives them a connection to our garden heritage, others choose non-hybrid seeds because they don't want to support the industrial Agriculture system that is increasingly controlling our food supply and some older, open-pollinated varieties produce more nutritious crops than do modern hybrids bred mostly for high yields and long shelf life.
7. Influence Crop Traits. Gene pools are incredibly elastic. By carefully observing your plants, you can save seed from those plants that best meet your needs for germination, ripening time, yield, specific fruit shape, flavor, storage, qualities, less seediness, better disease resistance, bloom color, or other unique trait within the variety of plant. Over time, most of the plants you grow from your saved seeds will end up having the desired traits you like.

Seed-Saving Tips
 

• Always choose OP (Open-Pollinated) varieties for seed saving, these are non-hybrid plants with seed that's true generation after generation. (Self & Cross-Pollinating plants are OP)
• The easiest crops to save seeds from are: peas, beans, tomatoes, and peppers (Self-Pollinators).
• Cross-Pollinating crops need to be isolated from other varieties of the same species. The simplest solution is to grow only one variety of a given species and you can just save seeds from one or two plants, but to maintain long-term health and vigor, you should buy new seed every few years or trade seeds with other growers. Cross-Pollinating crops to save seeds from are: brassicas, corn, carrots, beets, squash, cucumbers, and melons.
• Soak "wet" seeds, like Tomatoes and Squash which have a gel sac around the seeds that prevents germination, in order to remove the sacs and dry on a screen.
• Seed crops are often harvested at different times than food crops, in order to keep your garden organized and track of which crop you want for seed, mark off the row with a ribbon or tie or other marker that you will know means a seed crop.
• Flower heads are usually harvested as they dry.
• Using screens as filters or rubbing seed pods between your hands is a couple ways to remove chaff from the seed.
• Store seeds in glass jars, plastic bags or paper envelopes. Though glass is always best as it prevents moisture from getting to the seeds. (I have used baby food jars for small amounts of seed saving, but they are thoroughly washed, sterilized and dried before putting in the seeds).
• Store seeds in a cool, dry place, ideally at less than 50 degrees Fahrenheit and at a relative humidity level of less than 50 %. In general, for every 10 degrees colder the storage conditions, seed longevity doubles, so it's best to keep seed in a covered container in a refrigerator. As long as the seed is very dry, it will last longest if you keep it in a freezer. All seed should be dried to a brittle state, ideally less than 14 % moisture (so ice crystals don't form on the seeds while in a freezer). When you're ready to use freezer stored seeds, allow the storage jar to come to room temperature before opening it to avoid condensation on the seed.

Cite:
**(Information acquired from Mother Earth News Magazine, December 2012/January 2013 edition, Article " Saving Seed 7 Reasons Why and Dozens of Tips for How" by Roberta Bailey pgs 38-44 )**