In yesterday's post, I suggested prioritizing health and flavor when shopping and gardening.
In traditional cultures around the world, seeds from favorite varieties are saved and treasured! These are from plants which grow well in one's area, and those passed down in our families or given us by friends.
In Coming Home to Eat, ethnobotanist and folklorist Gary Paul Nabhan tells of making a pilgrimage from his home in the Sonoran Dessert of Arizona to visit cousins in the Bekáa Valley of Lebanon.
One afternoon, Gary visited a field of squash with his cousin Nicholas, and asked if he had any herb or vegetable seeds that had come down through the family. Nicholas nodded and opened a cabinet full of hand lettered seed envelopes and bags. After wrapping and labeling small packets of eggplant, cucumber, grains, pepper, parsley, zucchini and tomato seeds, he offered info on their individual planting and growing needs.
Gary shared about his work with the UN and US as a seed saver - yes, his cousins had seen an article about this and they were proud -"but one thing we did not understand it, well, because all of us, we save seed for family gardens here. Gary Paul, how come they pay people to be seed saver? Everyone in America, don't they make garden, save seeds?"
Gary's visit sparked his resolve to, "fill my larder as much as possible from foodstuffs in my own backyard, within my own horizons."
Like Barbara Kingsolver (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle) and others, Gary set our to spend a year eating seasonally from food grown in his area. (100 miles for Barbara and her family in Southern Appalachia, and a 250 mile radius for Gary, in the Sonorn Desert)
I've gardened all my life, and saved/ received seeds over the years.
As I contemplate what to plant, what to tend and nourish over the year ahead, I look to my own packets of saved seed, and a seed exchange at our public Library. My youngest granddaughter is in the gardening program at middle school, and helps stock the Library display. My Tea friend Nikki often passes on seeds and plants.
Home saved seeds include love in a mist, calendula, maché, mallow, Good King Henry, lettuce, carrots, perennial kale and squash .... some like Swiss chard,Tomatillos and artichokes, self sow.
Do you have any seeds / plants which have been passed down in your family.
While I haven't very often purposely saved seeds, almost every year I end up with a random vegetable plant growing out of the side of my compost bin. This year we harvested dozens of cherry tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteYes! Aren't volunteers like that awesomeness!
DeleteI fondly remember roofing our bikes (compete with kid seats) out to a shared garden- way too far from home to be practical! Sunny day, and the folks who lived there gave us tomatoes from the compost, and we harvested basil. Tomatoes in a paper bag with basil. Heavenly!!
Nadya