The Generosity of Seeds
I found and posted this video the other day on the Not Quite Hippie Tumblr and it spread like wildfire through the blogosphere. I’m reposting it here because I think it has an extremely important message and is beautifully made.
Claire from Compeller Pictures on Vimeo.
Right now all of our seeds are germinating. Our indoor seed trays are packed with new life as hundreds of seeds soften, take root, and start producing their first leaves. It is exciting to watch. I feel thankful that these seeds are able to do so much with so little. One seed, a bit of soil and water, and in a few months I will have more food than I know what to do with. I give this seed the most basic, elemental essentials and it provides me with flavors and nutrients I’d be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
The above clip comes by way of the Untitled GMO Film Project that I have been following via Kickstarter for some time now (if the clip speaks at all to the rest of the film, then we are in for a treat). Our narrator - Claire – takes us through a garden and shows us plants in the autumn just before they produce and send off hundreds, thousands of seeds. These seeds are the very definition of generous. Before the plant dies for the season, it gives off thousands of copies of itself not only so it can live on as a species, but so we can also enjoy their fruits in future generations as well.
If only we could all be as selfless as seeds.
With the arrival of spring everyone is outside more. Many are landscaping their yards, washing their cars, planting gardens and all around enjoying the wonderful weather. In my neighborhood, we didn’t see much of the other people living here during the winter. No one was out on bicycles, but cooped up in cars instead. Windows weren’t open, we couldnt’ hear the conversations going on all around us. Plans were detered or modified based on the snow and ice and cold temperatures and, overall, we saw less of our friends. For the first time in a long time, I understood the idea of “hibernation.” A hibernation also felt by seeds after they give way in the fall.
What are you learning from the seeds? How will you spread generosity this season?
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read moreLearned tricks when starting seeds
One day, a tomato
When we started seeds last year for our first garden, it was a labor of love. We had seeds we picked up form a local vendor, more or less a variety pack. We tried using the Jiffy Peat pellets and a seed-starting mix. Seeds went in the soil and we didn’t exactly take a lot of care in remembering what seeds went where.
In the mornings I moved the trays to the east window of the apartment, and then made sure I was home at around 2 so I could move them to the west window.
Looking back, it was a pain in the ass.
Fortunately, I was able to keep this in mind as we were starting the seeds for this year’s garden.
- Label. Clearly. Ideally with something that is mostly waterproof. Also keep in mind there is a chance that the seedlings will get moved around or will be transplanted to something bigger. Make sure there is a way to consistently keep track of which seedling is what. Each variety of plant demands different quality of soil, growing conditions, etc. Like children, at their young age all plants pretty much look the same.
- Keep a calendar. Not only on what you’re growing, but when it was started. You’d be surprised how quickly weekends past. Remembering key dates will help you plan ahead – not only for this garden season, but for the next as well.
Basil
- Surface sow? Contrary to popular belief, burying seeds is bad practice. Surface sow means planting on top of the dirt, maybe covering with a very light layer of soil. The key is to give your seed plenty of room to expand.
- Light and Heat – in order to germinate properly, seeds will need a warm, wet environment. Then they will need light. Don’t skimp on either. If you don’t have good window space, invest in a decent UV lamp. If you’re in Denver, check Craigslist for lamps from a dispensary/nursery that might be going out of business. LOTS of indoor hydroponics happens here.
- Keep a spray bottle around. Every seed needs moisture to get the process going. Mist daily.
Tomato
- Create a greenhouse effect. For at least the first few days of germination, covering your seedlings with a plastic hood can help the soil retain heat and moisture. Once first leaves start to establish on the seedlings, they will require more fresh air.
- Keep the trays and plastic hoods for next year. No sense in letting anything go to waste.
- Take pictures. After all, why wouldn’t you show this off?
read moreQuiet Winter Saturdays
organizing seed packets
This morning I am sitting here thinking about all of the things I need to do with the backyard to make it garden ready. Carly is over on the couch, pouring through the 2012 seed catalogs, preparing to buy dozens more varieties on top of the hundred or so we already have in our collection. A collection I still need to catalog to see exactly what we have and what we have coming through the mail.
For our yard, I still need to:
- Figure out how to lift the shed up on pallets in order to give it more of a foundation, and then move the whole thing flush against the side of the yard
- lay down a ton of gravel (probably 3 tons, now that I think of it) for landscaping
- build a path from the back door to the back gate (probably flagstone)
- build a better, more Lucky-proof fence around the garden to keep meddling dogs out.
- acquire lots of lumber, soil, compost, and manure for next season
- plan out the (new) front yard garden
- find a grow lamp so we can start all of these seeds within a few weeks
Hunting down the 2012 seed catalogs
I remember, as a kid, I would always get excited this time of year because that’s when the enormous Toys ‘R’ Us catalog would show up with one of the newspapers. It was like the September Issue of Vogue, but for toys, and what kid didn’t love glossy-page after glossy-page of plastic crap, brightly colored encyclopedia of all the cool crap that we would outgrow in a month or two?
Oh! To be young again!
Growing older, interests change, and I find myself thinking about seed catalogs. Pouring over page after page of stuff that I want to grow next Spring. Yes, now is the time to acquire your catalogs and plan out your plots for the next growing season. There are thoudsands of seed companies all over the world, many of them with some kind of catalog. Not all are heirloom varieties, or organic, or even non-GMO. But if you are interested in those things, here’s a few companies that will deliver pure goods:
Big, pretty vegetables from garunteed non-GMO seeds. What’s not to love? Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds also publishes Heirloom Gardener magazine. Definitely worth the look. Currently only the 2011 catalog is available. Look for 2012 sometime in the middle of December.
Baker Creek
Terrior Seeds/ Underwood Gardens
Offering only the finest in hand selected, untreated heirloom seeds for vegetables, herbs and flowers. Family owned and operated, good people.
Established in 1784, the Landreth Seed Company is one of the oldest seed companies in the United States. This last August they ran into a bit of fiscal trouble, but were able to stay afloat thanks to the increased sales and donations given by concerned gardeners everywhere. Proving that heirloom gardeners are not a dying breed.
Landreth
Do you have a favorite seed company? Where are they from and why do you return to them? Leave your answers in the comments below.
read moreThe GMO Seed – the root of the evil
Yes, really.
Remember the Green Revolution? No, not the one we’re sitting in the middle of now, but the first one? Happened in the late 80s, early 90s? It was a push to have engineered foods produced under the pretense of having enough to feed the entire world? Yow know – the “Green Movement” That was essentially a huge advertising and PR campaign for companies like DuPont and Monsanto to get their foot in the door of the global market and convince everyone that bioengineered food is good for them?
This is the green revolution that we will forever be recovering from.
Genetically modified foods come from, naturally (or, as the case may be, not so naturally), genetically modified seeds. While every seed undergoes some kind of modification through the natural trading of genetic material while the plant is growing, GMO seeds are modified in a lab. Geneticists screw around with the DNA of the seed to give it particular attributes. Most commonly what they aim for is to arm the seed, and subsequently the plant, with the very things it will need to survive to the end of the growing season. Many of the “Roundup Ready” seeds which are sold by Monsanto are designed to 1) force the plant to act as a pesticide, so whatever bug eats it dies 2) be completely resilient to Roundup (the herbicide that kills everything) and 3) ensure the plant produces only sterile seeds (they’ve delicately named this “the suicide gene”).
How to start seeds
Stolen from Flickr
By the time it is warm enough to plant things in the garden, it is probably too late to start plants from seeds. In order to have strong plants which produce early and second harvests, gardeners should probably start their seeds in the late winter. Last year we started seeds in the second to last week of February - and I think we could have easily benefited from planting them early.
Invested in the seed catalog? Planned your garden, what you want to eat, and placed an order with the seed company? You’ll want to start your seeds no later than six weeks before the last frost of the season (in Denver, beginning of April-ish).
1) What you start your seeds in will determine their rate of success. It being our first year of starting seeds we tried out a few different methods. Half of our seeds went into sectionalized trays that had a “special seed-starting” blend of soil added to them. The seeds sprouted, but not much else happened to them – they never really matured to the point where they could be transplated.
We had far better success with the other half of the seeds – planted in the Jiffy Peat Pellets. They were so successful in getting seeds a good start that we ended up starting a second round of seeds early May which also did very well in the garden.
The process to start them is simple: hide the seed under about 1/4 inch of peat. Keep the seedlings warm and moist for the first few days. You should start to see sprouts within a week.
2) Keep everything fairly moist and warm until the seeds start to sprout above the surface. Once sprouted, offer as much sunlight as possible. If it’s still early in the year, keep them inside. Think of them like babies – leaving them out in the snow is inherently a “bad thing.”
However, once the seedlings have leaves, curb back the amount of moisture. Yes, they need to be watered, but leaving them oversaturated for too long can cause mold to grow in the soil.
3) Transplanting. Before too long you’ll notice the roots are growing beyond the confines of whatever you’re growing them in. It’s time to move them into a larger container. Last year we bought a bunch of 2 inch peat-pots, filled with soil and moved the seedlings into them. A few weeks later we had to move them all again into 4 inch pots (it was still too early to move them outside). A few died in the transplanting process. In the future we will be putting them directly into the 4 inch pots.
The peat pots are pretty solid because they also enrich the soil when you inevitably plant them in the garden.
Last year's seedlings - when we still lived in the old place!
And that’s it. That’s all there is to starting a seed. The only other thing you can possibly add to the seed-starting process is a great deal of patience. There are months between when you start a seed to when it is strong enough to be planted in your garden (after the first frost) and even then there is the possibility it wont do that well.
Last year we had a seedling swap with fellow gardeners. We had started with a rash of tomato and eggplant seedlings and were more than happy to trade some of the stronger ones for chives, peppers and the pumpkin seedling that eventually grew into a fifteen foot vine in our garden. Consider doing the same with your community of gardeners. If everyone starts a surplus of certain seeds, then it is more likely there will be plenty of survivors to share with others.
This is gardening, after all. And if it’s not for the community, then what is it for?
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