Colin’s mobile seed cleaner at the Renfrew County Plowing Match 2012
Colin took his cleaner to the show so that Farmers who have not seen it first hand could see how much space is needed when set up. Unfortunately some storage bins on farms have been built with no thoughts on how to get a truck or in this case, Colin’s cleaner anywhere near them.
The thing that caught most farmers attention were the soybean plants that Colin had pulled from one of his fields and took along.( in front of sign) They are grown from seed (non-GMO) that Colin has been saving for 6 years, and have done very well, even with the drought. Colin was getting tired of people telling him that keeping your own seed doesn’t work, so he took along proof that it does and told anyone who’s interested they can come and see the field!
At Home With Us 
I also have people telling me not to save seed for my veggie garden, that it won’t work. I have been saving bean seeds, dill, squash, etc for a few years now. Soybeans should be no different (I have some of those seeds from 2011 someone gave me for fun). The trick with veggie garden seeds is to get open pollinated seeds. Sometimes this is marked on the seed packet (OP), but sometimes not. This will make sure the seed will have ‘fruit’.
Did Colin start with OP seed? I think that most often non GMO, organic seed is OP.
We don’t keep the vegetable seeds. We like to encourage the companies to stay in business that sell the heirloom seeds.
Soybeans are not open pollinated. They self-pollinate, they also don’t cross pollinate. We grow what is called ‘conventional’ soybeans. Right now Colin is playing around with some open pollinated grain corn. It didn’t do so well this year, but hopefully next year it will be even more drought tolerant.
The big thing with vegetable seeds is not to try keeping hybrid seeds. They most often won’t produce true fruit.
We have a neighbour who has been growing soybeans from his own seed for years and years. As organic as possible and of course not GM! His beans did well this year too.
My rattlesnake beans did well. They grow right to HARD killing frost and I leave the last beans on the plant. Once they start to dry up I pick them and save the seed. I also buy some seed.