Spring abundance – so many flowers, so many bees, so many seeds. Here’s how I collect my own seeds and make origami seed packets.
In my permaculture garden, now I am collecting brassica seeds and letting others fall to self-seed later. In my new short film I follow the mustard spinach from flowering to seed collection.
Also, did you know:
- Brassica vegetable flowers are edible.
- Brassica flower stalks are edible.
- Brassica seedpods (immature ones) are edible.
- Brassica seeds are edible – mustard spinach seeds can be used to make seeded mustard.
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| Mustard spinach seedpods – almost ready to harvest. Nice and plump, just need to brown off. |
Brassicas are such diverse, multifunctional and bountiful plants in the garden. Watch my new film to see how I collect brassica seeds and see my daughter Maia demonstrate how to make origami seed packets for storing and sharing seeds.
Click here to watch the 8 minute film:
When it comes to seeds, here are my tips:
- Use non-hybrid seeds so you can save from year to year.
- Allow vegetables to go to seed for abundance (one lettuce = 10,000 seeds!)
- Encourage self-seeding vegetables to flourish and adapt to your garden.
- Let your garden soil be your seed bank too.
- Collect and exchange seeds.
Other things going to seed in my garden right now include perennial welsh onion, rocket, lettuce, snow peas
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| Native and honey bees visiting my flowering perennial welsh onion today. |
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| Flowering lettuce – from the daisy family. |
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| Lettuce seeds – once the flowers have finished and dried, you can collect the seeds before they fly away. |
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| Edible coriander/cilantro flowers. |
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| My citrus is back in flower – the bees are all over them. |
Origami Seed Packets
To make your own collection of origami seed packets, watch Maia’s instructions in this short film and check out a previous post I have written with clear step-by-step photo instructions. You can use anything – newspaper, scrap paper … http://our-permaculture-life.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/make-origami-seed-envelopes.html
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| Maia’s origami seed packets. |
Great tips and thank you so much for the origami lesson Maia, I will be teaching this to our Preschool Seed Savers, no more sticky tape!