Evolution in effect. After the dirt, and the compost, with mounds in place; comes seed saving. There are a couple reasons for this, but the main reason for it is evolution. Our lives tend to be decades, but the majority of the plants we eat live a single year. You can turn over two generations of radishes in a single season if you want. This can be done with a lot of edible plants. Considering this, the changes in ten years can be quite dramatic, and because of this some botanist make money by simply evolving their own plants. They can even be trademarked. Google Biker Bill’s Jalapeno for one of my favorite examples. Cultivar.
Another positive about the seed saving is money of course. For instance the herb basil. A pack of seeds will be around the 2.00 range. One plant, i.e. one seed, will produce hundreds of seeds. This means hundreds of plants, which becomes thousands and thousands of seeds. In three seasons you can have more basil than you will know what to do with, for that two bucks you spent. With the arrival of your third generation of basil, you will be selling your own seeds locally. Basil could be considered a poor example because of the pain it can be to obtain the seeds from the dried up flowers. It would be righteous though, to make ones own version of a combine, but instead a kind of mini-tabletop kind for this purpose of getting seeds out of small flowers.
Applying the Golden Rule to the seeds requires empathy. Here we are this little seed, and if we come from a place like Baker’s Creek Farm, we are coming from a place of love. Once deposited in a completely new environment, your soil, on certain levels, we are stressed. It will be a generation or two before we are adapted to our new place in the world, and our new caretakers. Since the healthiest plants are the most adapted, our first couple of generations of plants will be more disease and pest prone. This is the primary reason to not buy seeds year after year, but to save your own.
Back to the kale. I let mine bolt. It bolts very similar to lettuce and all the other edible greens. I planted a bit more than I could eat, which was on purpose, but still I only planted three rows about six or seven feet long. All season while it was growing I would just fill my bag with the bigger green leaves I wanted, making sure not to ever over pick any of them. I’d say I never picked more than 25% of the leaves off of any one plant at any one time. I let them get big enough that they were blocking out too much light for their neighbors.
When I stood next to that kale patch in the spring, when it was flowered, all one could hear was the buzzing of honeybees. The flowers are delicious by the way. That kale also survived a winter with no help from me at all. I really do love that plant.
Once it bolted it didn’t grow as much, but that will happen with any plant. Old age comes to us all. It’s also not the healthiest to eat a plant like kale all the time. I could have chopped it off just above the lowest leaves, and it would have started all over again, but I wanted the seeds. I got like a quart and a half of seeds off of those three rows. Bakers Creek charged me about two dollars for a tablespoon. I used less than that tablespoon to plant my measly three rows. Once I got the seeds, I chopped them all off at the ground with garden sheers. They weren’t making good leaves anymore. Coolest thing was, all the seeds that dropped naturally were sprouting up already. Harmony. No more rows. Ever again.
The only negative to seed saving can be the time it takes to obtain the seeds from certain plants. You know, like shelling black beans, or peas, or corn. Tomato seeds are a real pain. All the cucurbit seeds have to be carefully washed and dried. Those basil seeds are annoying as hell, but to me they are worth it. Basil is right there with cannabis with the health benefits. Juice a whole basil plant every day and you will probably live forever.
It will also make you look like a legit farmer selling packs of seeds along with your produce, because you will be a legit farmer at that point.
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