Late Summer Seed Saving

Late summer seed saving is under way in the family garden. Working alongside our children in the garden is one of the greatest treasures I hold onto. We watch our children find inspiration in the garden, have adventurous palettes as they taste new flavors, and noticing them choosing to spend their free time with their hands tending the soil. Invite the children in your circle to explore with you and share in shaking tiny seeds loose from your favorite herbs, flowers and veggies- even if you grow a simple windowsill pot. You can always put a bag over the plant before you shake them, but I often gravitate towards garden sensory experiences, feeling them in my hand; crunchy, rough, and silky seed textures that vary from plant to plant. The last couple weeks we’ve focused on gathering nettle, calendula and basil seeds. In this video, we share tiny black basil seeds from the dried, brittle flower stalks. They look like black sesame, don’t they? Later this week we’ll be collecting sunflower + tiny thyme and oregano seeds as the flowers dry. We’ll tuck these seeds away in the dirt, and save some in little brown envelopes for next year’s garden.

Gardening is making art, learning science, uncovering history, looking at mathematics and fractals, learning about fungi webs and communication and tending to our mental health. There is an entire school system found in a garden with every subject studied through tangible experience… it is whole and ever changing as we are, feeding us from the ground up in return for our care and attention.

And sow (😉) the story continues….