Being self-sufficient is one of the thrills of collecting
your own seeds. And now's the perfect time to start.
Seeds comes in all shapes and sizes. I was introduced to a
horse chestnut this year whose seeds were as large as oranges, but I never got
to see the seeds of the bee orchids on the hill across the way. They were so
tiny that they dispersed into an invisible cloud, to be carried on the wind to
a new home. Some seeds stick, using your socks or the fur of animals to move to
new territories. Some ripen within a succulent fruit to be eaten and pooped
from a perch miles away from the parent plant. Each seed will have an ambition,
every seedling a story.
Our plants are factories, storing up energy to put into
their progeny, and we are never more aware of their modus operandi than at this
teetering point between seasons when the seeds have to find a home. It is good
to feel part of the cycle and I will busy myself, along with other creatures,
to intercept some of this bounty for next year. Jam jars litter my windowsills,
containing pods upturned so that the seeds dry properly.
Some seeds have a longer life than others and can be stored
over the winter, but others need to be sown immediately. The angelica family
and the buttercup family, for instance, prefer to tough it out in the ground
or in a pot topped with a protective layer of sharp grit to deter the
slugs. The wild Helleborus viridis my neighbour has growing on her
land was a fine example. Given some seeds from it last year, I sowed them as
soon as I got home, filtering the poisonous shiny black seeds along
the crease in the palm of my hand into a pot. (Read further: Source)
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