From Seed to Plant

Growing a healthy plant (or baby) starts with the quality of the seed and the soil. This is why I place so much emphasis on owning the whole process:

🍀 the selection of the seeds
🍀 the preparation of the soil
🍀 the nurturing of the growing plant

I am part of a local seed network and have been growing seedlings from those high quality, local variety seeds (and others I bought ecologically) since February. Anything I would not manage to grow myself successfully, I could receive at our spring “seedling exchange” event. 

This is why I felt quite pissed off when one of my neighbors – with good intentions for sure – bought a large amount of commercial seedlings that had all visibly been treated with some chemical product. I felt sabotaged in my efforts to maintain local varieties and to really grow our food in a “fertile” way from the seed to fruit. The last thing I wanted was commercial plants cross-contaminating my local varieties (because then the seeds you save are no longer pure). However, I also did not want to let those plants die… I eventually placed them far away from the main garden and donated the rest to someone else. 

The incidence reminded me how crucial communication is. You have to repeat the messages again and again and again. People have certain habits and one of them (for many people running small gardens here) is to simply buy the plants instead of going the extra mile of growing them themselves from selected (!) seeds. Since after placing the plants in the soil, most people then no longer use any chemicals, they still call the resulting produce organic, but obviously the seed and the early stages of growing the plants also count, both biochemically and also energetically.

So, if we wish to maintain the richness of biodiversity as well as the health and fertility of our plants (or children), we should use “seeds” from strong, ecologically grown, local variety plants and plant them in fertile soil.

Commercial seeds and seedlings are usually heavily treated with chemicals and also come from just a handful of (industrially owned) varieties. 

Eat what you want to keep. Support what you want to see grow.

If you are choosing to not grow your own food at this point in time, look out for local or old varieties of fruits and vegetables and buy them organically. The planet will thank you!