As a gardener, a significant portion of my winter time is spent reading and daydreaming about spring. At some point in the journey I read Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. First, these guys are not saints and I do not subscribe to all of their ideals, yet each offered their perspectives on the natural world, through which I gleaned a great deal about gardening. One, or maybe all of them, wrote about planting old seeds. The gist of the story was that nature did the work for us if we would only wait and plant old seeds. The weakest seeds would not yield, but the strongest seeds would sprout.
This story might be a mix of hopeful Emerson, do-little Thoreau, and pragmatic Whitman. I cannot find the quote anywhere but it doesn’t matter who said it. As long as it is put into practice, the idea lives on. We’ve been seed-saving for years and we have many old seeds. This spring I am cleaning out my seedboxes. The January plans are still in force, and now this is added in.
In addition to the dusty old guys listed above, there is a not-so-dusty dude in Australian named Mark, with a YouTube channel called Self Sufficient Me. He has a great garden and practices overseeding. That overseeding results in microgreens and baby greens that he can eat early in the season as the garden grows. It also reduces his need to weed because the rows are full of approved seedlings. He has been following this practice for a while now, and has volunteer lettuce varieties springing up in his yard. Who doesn’t want that?!
Looking at the seeds we have now, it seems like a lot to put in the ground especially considering our square foot and permaculture approach. Despite that, when the time comes to plant out everything is going in. The results will speak for themselves and I will report back to you.
Until next time, keep daydreaming of spring.
simple heresy 