seeds

One Seed At A Time

scleaver — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:00:38 -0400

If you were hoping to save grandma’s heirloom tomato seeds for the next generation, get your seed packets ready. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is preparing to store copies of crops and other plants in a tunnel deep in a permafrost mountain. So far, according to Scientific American, the vault has 268,000 samples and can hold up to 4.3 million more. They’ll start accepting donations in February 2009.

There are other seed banks around the world, but the Svalbard will out-store them all. In response to concerns over what global warming and monoculture farming practices will do to the variety of our seeds, the vault will be able to withstand any natural disaster, war, and temperature, and can store duplicates of seeds as well. Which seeds would you save, and why?

Photo from Kitchen Gardeners International.

Building The Doomsday Vault -- Seeds to Save the Human Race

scleaver — Thu, 08 May 2008 00:00:00 -0400

The Doomsday Vault, a tunnel in the Arctic that will eventually be lined with concrete and fitted with blast-proof doors, may be the key to human survival post world disaster. The vault will be able to withstand global warming, terrorism, and nuclear war. To save our human race, we’re going to fill it with seeds.

The idea, according to Claire Hope Cummings’ new book Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds is that those seeds will be used to recreate agriculture as we used to know it after a global attack or after our world crumbles. And, the Doomsday Vault is something that’s more immediate than we may realize. As Cummings wrote in an excerpt from her book on Alternet.org, “the integrity of the seeds are threatened, in the wild and on our farms.” Technology, patents, corporations, and the overall “degradation of the environment” are all putting our seeds in peril.

Outside of biology 101, we tend to take seeds for granted, yet, wrote Cummings, “[s]eeds are essential to the regenerative capacity of the planet. We will need their natural resilience and adaptability even more as the temperature rises.” All together, seeds and the plants they produce are how the planet breathes, not to mention the food, cloth, and now fuel that they provide us.

As we move a world of seeds that’s more sci-fi than Mendel, biodiversity is decreasing, and we’re at a crossroads in life where, Cummings ominously forecasted: “Whoever controls the future of seeds controls the future of life on earth.” So, who do you want to control life? Industrial agriculture (Monsanto and other giant ag companies) or someone else…us, perhaps?

Read Cummings’ five reasons that industrial ag doesn’t cut it in the article: Artificial Foods and Corporate Crops: Can We Escape the 'Frankenstate'?

Photo of heirloom seed packets from Veggie Gardening Tips.

Seedy Delivery

ckane — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 17:46:08 -0400

I'll state right off that this project is not for the impatient. This is for the crafty folk who have coordinated helpers, and ideally a smaller-size wedding. What I am about to suggest is making your own super-Earth-friendly seedling guest favors out of recycled newspaper, soil, and seeds*.

The step-by-step directions are on the Seeded blog, in the post titled Roll Your Own, including photos. While the finished product may at first seem a little pedestrian even for a green wedding, you can easily dress it up in one or several ways. Instead of the typical black white and read all over newspaper, you can use the pink papers that are found at larger newsstands, or dye the paper to match your wedding colors. (Food coloring should do it.) Or if your wedding colors are bold, it might be more effective to just tie up each little pot with twine, raffia, or ribbon in the appropriate color.

If all of this seems just too much to take on when you're already busy planning a big event, numerous seed-embedded tchotchkes are popping up on the market (to be featured in future posts). But with this project, risky and involved thought it may be, you can give your guests plants that are already growing, at one of the lowest prices around, and you can choose whatever plant or plants you want to give.

*I am aware this is one of the crunchier suggestions I've ever made.

Growing Our Own Clean Air -- Seeds Are Planted

ellen — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Finally…we’re back after 2 weeks of being sick.

These are the seeds we received from Whatcom Seed Co. Of all the plants in the How to Grow Fresh Air book, these were the only ones we could find online. If you remember from our previous post, we’re trying to grow indoor plants that will contribute to clean air both in our homes and in the office.

Here is a picture of the seeds, the big ones are the palm seeds and the tiny flea-sized ones are the rubber plant seeds. They both came with very explicit planting instructions. I’m no gardener but we did the best we could.

For the Palm seeds, Whatcom’s instructions said to soak the seeds in warm water for a few days if they appear dry so we did.

For germination, the instructions said to use “peat, cocofibre or similar media”. We couldn’t find any at our local nursery so we used homemade compost (I take no responsibility for this - composting, including picking out the worms, is entirely my husband’s project) and mixed it with vermiculite. We added the seeds and put the whole mess into a ziploc bag. Now we wait. The instructions say that “seeds take anything from 2 weeks to 2 years (or more) to germinate, however most will sprout after 4-6 weeks”. So I guess it’s a race to see if these seeds will germinate before my unborn child finishes gestating in 10 weeks!

For the Rubber Tree seeds, the instructions were much simpler: “sow them on the surface of a peaty compost mix, keep it moist, cover the container with a piece of glass or clear plastic and leave in a temperature of approximately 70 degrees F in a location that receives diffused light”. Germination is expected in 15-90 days.

Stay tuned.