The Potential of a Seed

I just got my 2023 Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog in the mail, and it made me squeal like a little girl. This is just their annual catalog--I've restrained myself from getting their entire collection because I would bankrupt my husband in a bad sort of way, I just know it. (I have very little self-control when it comes to seeds.)

Pure joy. :D

I don't think that I've ever found such joy in seeds prior to starting this homesteading journey. I've mentioned in several blog posts, that I'm pretty much a serial plant killer by nature, but through stubbornness and sheer volume of plants started, we're able to eke out a decent harvest. But while gardening still has a steep learning curve for me, the love of seeds has come easily and powerfully, clogging up our mail delivery with little packages of seed packets that shake and rattle and whisper all the secrets and promises that they hold within.

A little sampling of what comes in the mail

It kind of started with a practical thought. Those little 6 cell trays you get at the store, at best are probably about $5 if not usually more. But for that price, I can get 50 seeds or more, and with so many more options than started plants. Some heirloom varieties I had never heard of before, varieties you never see anywhere outside of some very fancy farmer's markets... That's honestly one of the most fun things about collecting seeds. Sure, get tomato seeds. But do you know how many varieties of tomatoes there are? All with varying flavor profiles and juiciness and meatiness; color and shape and sweetness and purpose, the possibilities are endless! And now apply that to every single thing you can grow! The hoarder in me demands to try them all! And if we were going to be planting in volumes needed to feed our family, or striving towards that goal at least, it was so much more economical to start everything from seed.

[I do buy seedling plant trays still. Sometimes seed starts fail. Sometimes a mysterious, super late, unexpected frost comes through and wipes out every single one of your plants like last year and you have to replant in order to have something in the garden at all. Sometimes I just don't have that particular seed (like eggplant). Sometimes they're on sale and a great deal, and I can just pop them into an empty spot in the garden. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to buy something :D]

We started by just going to big box stores or a nursery and looking at their selection. And then a neighbor let me borrow a catalog of some exotic Asian varieties (because I love Korean vegetables and they're hard to find in stores).And then I fell into the YouTube rabbit hole of homesteaders and what they plant in their garden, and then I got turned on to Baker Creek and discovered other subsequent seed distributors, and then I was planning out what would be needed for a medicinal garden to make our homeopathic remedies, and then I was researching forage crops and cover crops and pasture grazing crops, and now I have a treasury of catalogs and seeds upon seeds upon seeds. Say what you will about the state of my housekeeping for everywhere else, but my seeds are lovingly categorized and sealed away, waiting for the beginning of every growing season.

My prized seed vault - These are actually scrapbooking storage boxes from the craft store.

[I used to just get any variety whose descriptions sounded yummy, but now I try and stick with heirloom varieties so that I could potentially harvest the seeds.]

How did I choose my seeds? I started a little manic and willy-nilly (Still am, if I'm being honest). And then kind of had to back-track and fill in as needed. I guess the best way would be to make a list. My initial list was basically the foods that we mainly got from the store--what was our go-to produce list and how to replicate?

-Tomatoes - I can't imagine summer without tomatoes. My favorite kind are the Brandywine type with the multiple ridges and folds. They are such satisfyingly, juicy tomatoes and make the most incredible salads or just straight eating (the Korean way is to sprinkle with a little sugar and get it super chilled in the fridge! Or I also love the olive oil with a sprinkle of salt. Perfection). I have purple, red, yellow, and orange varieties of these type of heirloom tomatoes. We also devour any kind of cherry or grape tomatoes so we have a lot of those as well. I've also got some sauce type tomatoes like Romas and Amish Paste. I get my tomato seeds from Azure Standard and Baker Creek. I've had some success with seeds from Terroir Seeds, as well. But also, I would say that about 50% of my tomatoes come from local seedling trays just because tomatoes need so much time to grow, and the weather in the spring can be so unpredictable.

-Cucumbers - I can't do summer without cucumbers either. I eat them as I am picking them from the garden. I had an aunt who would just hand me cucumbers from her garden when I was little, and I would sit with the whining mosquitoes flying around my head and crunch through them, forgetting the humidity and the heat because summer cucumbers are just so dang delicious. I have a few different kinds---the long, Korean bumpy kind for fresh eating. The little, short, stubby ones for pickling. And the long, graceful twisty Armenians are a family favorite, too (I know they're technically a melon, but whatever). We eat all the varieties fresh, but also make a ton of pickles for my girls who will just eat an entire jar in one sitting. I got them from the same sources as the tomatoes. I think my Armenians are from Urban Farmer, though.

-Peppers (Sweet) - these are more for my kids. Because they love to snack on bell pepper. I'm coming around to enjoying sweet peppers too. There are some truly SWEET kinds that I had never heard of before diving into heirloom seeds, so I highly recommend perusing them.

-Peppers (Hot) - I love all things spicy. That burn is heavenly to me. I grow serranos, habaneros, jalopenos, Thai bird peppers, and Chihuahuan black peppers. I dabbled in super hot peppers (like the scorpion or ghost peppers), but I actually want to be able to taste my food. And I don't want a child (especially if it's not my child) to accidentally eat a super-hot and suffer, so they stay out of my garden for the most part. I also have gochujang peppers, and milder, fresh eating peppers for Korean meals. I usually eat my peppers fresh. I only this year started pickling them. Otherwise, they end up dried and made into pepper flakes.

-Zucchini/Pumpkin - If you ever want your garden to look amazing, plant a gourd. They grow in magnificent vines with luscious leaves and fill in all the dead and empty spots. And one zucchini plant produces all summer long. We got a zucchini a day from each plant. They're delicious fresh. And also good for de-worming your animals, so we always grow them. I started with just only sugar pie pumpkins, but now I'm dreaming of those dusty jarrahdale pumpkins and those golden Cinderella types. If you plant your varieties together, don't save those seeds because the hybrid gourds can be toxic in the subsequent generations.

-Corn - Another aesthetically pleasing crop to grow. "Knee high by July," they say about corn. No one mentions 7 feet tall by August though. They can be a little finicky in terms of pollination (they're pollinated by the wind so need to be planted in blocks to make sure pollen spreads evenly) and they're heavy soil feeders so you have to amend properly to get good growth, but they're just so striking in the background, and the corn is lovely to eat too. The Silver Queen variety is a Silva family tradition, so we grow that (it's a hybrid type, but a pretty old hybrid). I have also tried Peaches and Cream, Bantam corn, and popping corn. I've gotten seed kernels from True Leaf Market as well as Urban Farmer.

-Basil - for pesto, for noodles, for salads, because it's wonderful. I have many, many, many varieties. From Italian to Genovese, to Thai, to Cinnamon, to Tulsi (I know not technically a basil), to Lettuce leaf, and African, and ... I just got one of every variety I good because I LOVE basil. I got my basil seeds from OutsidePride and Baker Creek.

-Mint - Again. Love mint. I know everyone says not to plant it in the ground, but I did because that's how much I love it. I planted it in a spot where I wasn't going to grow anything else. I just wanted it to spread and overtake that place. It hasn't because that's how bad and hard the soil is, but we still get a decent patch. I have apple, chocolate, pineapple, mountain, spearmint, peppermint, and lemon balms and bergamots. Love them all. Wish they would grow and take over like everyone else's mint does, but maybe next year. I got some of my mint seeds from a present from a friend (it was a large package of tea/medicinal herb starter kit) and also a lot from starts or from friends' gardens because mint seeds are so tiny.

-Melons - these I got from the food we ate. I saved Korean melon seeds from a particularly delicious melon, and save some every year. Same with cantalope and honeydew. Watermelon has also been a success for us, this past year, but they are a little sensitive about the watering and can split if you're not careful. I got my watermelon seeds from Azure and Baker Creek.

-Beans - I wasn't really a bean person until I had fresh beans from the garden for the first time. And then my life was forever changed. The texture and crunch is something that can't be replicated with store beans. We especially love the Red Chinese Noodle beans. They're squeaky :) And one plant can produce a meal's worth of beans every day. It's amazing. A friend introduced us to spicy dilly beans for the first time last year and now I just want to grow rows of beans to pickle in chili and garlic. I also tried soybean seeds for the first time last year because I love edamame, and wanted to see if I could try to make my own tofu (didn't get around to that). We dabbled in other beans like fava beans (but I can't be bothered to prep those for eating) and dried beans are so much cheaper to buy in bulk in store so aren't something that we put a lot of necessity in. I got my green bean seeds from OutsidePride, Azure, and Baker Creek.

-Asparagus - These are technically not from seed. They're perennials. I guess you can start them from seed. But they were on my list to get.

-Potatoes - These are more for the novelty, as buying potatoes are still the cheaper option and we don't really taste a difference in store bought vs. homegrown. They're just fun to grow. Sometimes I just plant sprouted potatoes we buy from the store. Sometimes I get seed potatoes that I see on sale in Tractor Supply. Often a potato I forgot to harvest the year before grows into a big plant.

-Sweet Potatoes - specifically the Korean kind because they're hard to find in store. I buy slips, or start slips from existing potatoes, and we grow these because one slip can make pounds and pounds of potatoes. And they just slowly twine up and over the edge of their box with beautiful dark green and purple-tinged heart shaped leaves. On my wishlist for this year is UBE. We get our slips from Urban Farmer.

-Lettuces - I've never had success with growing lettuce. My mother has. She's got a lovely bed of sweet, soft leaves. I occasionally get a good head of green or red varieties, but the heat is so intense, I reserve them more for winter/early spring growing. Still trying though, because I love lettuce in everything.

-Brassicas - if I can get Kale or broccoli started, it grows well. Big If. It's a struggle to get going, but once it's established it does beautifully. They're so much crunchier and beautiful growing. And their flowers are delicious too. Cabbages are some of my favorite and I'm still trying to grow brussel sprouts. I get my brassica seeds from True Leaf Market and Baker Creek.

-Garlic - one of my favorite crops to grow. Technically not seeds, but I buy garlic to plant every year. We eat all parts of the garlic plant--stalk, scape, and bulb. The little flowers are wonderful too. We get our seed garlic from Keene Garlic.

Seed Garlic!

-Onions - green onions are possibly my favorite vegetables of all time. We have them all year round in our garden. It's just a permanent feature. I get a big bag of seed onions from my neighbor. He always gets more than he wants to plant. It's very sweet.

I started with that list and then added more and more. Perilla leaves, beets, okra, radishes, carrots, different types of gourds, sunflowers, strawberries, huckleberries, tomatillos, ground cherries, herbs of all varieties, and Asian varieties that a lot of mainstream sellers didn't have (Kitazawa Seeds has so many Asian varieties--and they partnered with True Leaf Market which makes ordering a bit more convenient now) and then when I couldn't think of anything else, I started going through all the tabs of these seed distributors and discovering new things that I had never heard of before. I got a huge variety of medicinal plants (arnica, ashwaghanda, burdock, valerian, wormwood, stevia, etc. from OutsidePride and Strictly Medicinal Seeds), and then things like capers, tea plants, coffee beans even---if it could potentially grow in zone 9 I would add it to cart. My interest grew to include native pollinator attractants or plants that would make growing conditions better for crops, like clovers, borage, comfrey, etc. Varieties of flowers and root vegetables and leafy greens and fruits that I had no idea what they tasted like, what they would look like, could they even grow here? But I was hooked. I had to give it a try... this sounds kind of insane on paper, but that's how I got to where I am now.

I burn out after every summer from the heat and the workload of the garden, and by the time the first frost comes and leaves everything a brown and straggly mess, I kind of sigh in relief that it's over. Cleaning out the garden beds, throwing the remains to chickens, and then layering over everything with compost, there's a quiet over the garden that I need to feel. Nothing is really growing, everything is deep in its winter dormancy (especially because this year, I totally dropped the ball on putting a winter garden in the ground)--there are onions and garlic freshly planted but they won't poke through the mulch for a few more months. (I do have saffron crocus growing for the first time this year---the first little bud just bloomed today and I am beyond ecstatic!)

Baby Crocus!

Even though the work of adding amendments and planning out pruning schedules and fixing water lines and rearranging beds and whatnot is physically laborious, it's a different kind of work. I don't have to be delicate around roots or worry about smothering something or burning a plant from over-fertilization. I don't care if the kids are stomping behind me through the beds, and they can "help" as much as they want without giving me an anxiety attack. The water is turned off and I can be a clumsy, lumbering Clydesdale going about my chores because it's shoveling and dumping and not worrying about killing anything.

But then the seed catalogs start coming in, and I am reminded about all the beautiful things that could grow. I can reimagine the garden as a wild, lovely, growing thing of fruits and vegetables and flowers and humming bees and moist, loamy soil. I can think fondly of my children excitedly plucking ripe tomatoes or munching on cucumbers in the shade of a tree, and shoving fistfuls of beans into pockets and exclaiming over the size of the garlic heads we will be harvesting! Can you see the rows and rows of produce from the garden, canned and preserved, dried and packaged to nourish family and friends in times of lean or plenty? Can you envision those tall, wavy stalks of corn and the children that run through them plucking fat ears and eating sweet cobs all summer long? I already long for my wild patch of perilla leaves and the tender basil that perfumes the air as I pass my hands through their bushy growth. My overcrowded counter of syrups and fermenting things; brewing teas and kefirs; the fresh mints and berries that taste of sunshine and warmth and happiness.

In this little packet of seeds in my hand, I am reading about the type of life that will spring forth from it. How it is the most tender, most delicious, most beloved variety of its kind. How it can be harvested in a surprisingly short amount of days, and think of all the yummy treats that can come from it. Each little envelope is an amnesiac drug to me---I forget about the swarming ants, the random leaf mold, and the stringy, sickly thing that I produced in my garden because the water schedule was weird, the soil wasn't properly amended, the summer was just too gosh darn hot, or the guineas got to the fruit before I did. In my mind's eye, everything grows to its perfect potential. A veritable paradise of life here at my fingertips and all I have to do is press this tiniest packet of life into earth, give water and light and watch it break through soil and unfurl delicate, green cotyledon leaves, drinking in the sun.

Perhaps this is why I love these seeds so much. They are a promise of hope. The joy of harvest and a representation of faith. From a tiny seed comes a hundredfold fruit. It has forgiven my past errors, my past failures. In fact, it cannot even see them. It is perfect in its potential. It is perfect in all that it could possibly be.

Each seed holds a promise. Last year didn't work so well, but this year, could be the year--and can you imagine what that would be like? So I flip through the catalogs with their brilliant, technicolor photos and the delicate botanical drawings. I make a wishlist of what in the world could I possibly grow this year? And I fill little pots and trays and sprinkle seeds and press them gently, covering them when needed, exposing them to light, keeping them safe from cold and wind and scratching animals and little curious hands.

Oh what hope is in a seed! What a garden we shall grow! Glory to God for all things!