Saving Seeds
January 3, 2012 – 10:10 amCanada’s Seed and Plant Sanctuary was started in 2002. It’s one of a number of organizations in North America committed to the preservation and promotion of heritage seeds. The Sanctuary keeps records of edible crops for Canada and they collect and store seeds. You can join the Salt Spring Sanctuary Society and select seeds to grow and report back on. Which is what I did in 2011.
Pictured below are four of the five plants I grew in 2011. King of Denmark Spinach, Greek Cress, Gerard’s Cress and Pepper Cress. The fifth plant I grew was New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides), which unfortunately didn’t set seed within my growing season.
I haven’t had a lot of success growing spinach, but King of Denmark Spinach (Spinacea oleracea) pictured above (top row) seemed to work well on the balcony. This variety germinated really well and produced for a number of weeks before setting seed. It’s an early summer spinach, with thick, dark green, tasty leaves. Its seed was clustered along the stem. The seed clusters were prickly, rock hard and a little tough to break apart – quite the armour-plated protection built into this plant.
Greek Cress (Lepidium sativum), pictured above in the second row also germinated well and grew into a container full of thick spicy leaves. It produced a healthy amount of seed. The tiny rust coloured, almost kidney shaped seeds were enclosed in tissue-thin pods that were easily dispersed by the wind. Peppery Gerard’s Cress pictured above (third row) and Pepper Cress (bottom row) both produced a very similar looking seed pod to the Greek Cress although quantities were notably smaller.
Although I grew each of these plants in separate clay containers, all of the Cress produced a leafy, bright green plant that would be easy to combine in a container with herbs or annuals. And if you are interested in learning more about saving seeds, Seed Living has a list of 10 resources and the Seed Sanctuary provides a great overview to get you started.