How can gardeners stop the addiction of buying seeds?
Every gardener knows that buying seed packets every year can be very addicting. One can easily spend $50 to $100 on seed packets in the spring. In the general scheme of things, it’s not a huge expense. However, most seeds that are sold in stores are labeled as hybrids. This means that if you were to grow the vegetable for the purpose of collecting its seed, these seeds will likely produce inconsistently odd plants the next year.
If you want to save seeds from your garden vegetables to grow for yourself next year, you’ll have to make sure you purchase “heirloom” seeds. Heirloom seeds have pure genetics, and you can be sure that these seeds will produce a consistent, reliable crop under favorable conditions. You can save the seeds from heirloom vegetables to use the following year or two. You can purchase seeds online from companies like Baker Creek Seed Company, or Seed Savers Exchange. Then, once you plant those vegetables, you can pick one plant that where you’ll have it dry up to collect its seeds.
As a gardener who wants to be self-reliant, saving seeds from plants like my corn is so fulfilling and important! If I can dry a couple ears of corn every year, I won’t need to buy corn seeds ever again. I can be sure that I have seeds no matter what. I don’t have to run to the store hoping that I’ll find the variety I want. I don’t have to worry about my Amazon packages being delayed, or shipped to the wrong house. I have my seeds. Right in a box on a shelf.
Saving seeds helps you to be more sustainable
Saving seeds every year helps me to be more sustainable, because it’s something that can be repeated every year, and I’m not spending more money. LOL. Remember, I said “MORE” sustainable.
These days, you may notice the word “sustainability” being used across different industries in marketing. Since my college years when I was an agriculture student, I’ve become somewhat cynical about the true meaning of “sustainability”…since I’ve seen this word thrown around everywhere like it’s lost its meaning.
It’s like if you incorporate just a couple green things into your business, it feels like then you’ve earned your Boy Scout badge that officially marks you as “sustainable”.
Like, yay, we have solar panels at our company now, and therefore we are a sustainable restaurant or venue.
Meanwhile, you confess you’ve never composted anything in your life, and rotting vegetables and food scraps make you run to the dumpster ASAP before it stinks up the place.
Anyone working in marketing should spend some digging into the term “sustainability”. Where can this term be applicable? How can the word “sustainability” be mis-used? Who determines what is sustainable, and what is not? Is certification from third party inspector or government entity the magic wand, or “end all be all”?
Explore the various meanings of "sustainable" = it's never ending.
I personally believe that sustainability is a journey of a company that never ends, with no actual, defined destination. I don’t believe that it’s accurate if a farm or company just labels themselves as sustainable. Rather, one’s level of sustainability should be perceived as a collection of management tasks or methods that are either “more” or “less” sustainable.
Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, sustainability shouldn’t be labeled on a company if they follow a list of pre-determined, standard protocols or measures. Because we’re dealing with living things being turned into food to support more living things & human beings, every farm and agricultural business is like its own unique piece of art…where the art is what is being produced, and the artist is the farmer.
Farming is like art.
The artist determines the next best stroke of color to use, and might consider its work under different types of light. The artist doesn’t look at written directions before doing EVERY single stroke and step. Sure, they may refer to different resources and inspiration, but they work based on their experience, the audience, and whatever the heck they want. The artist doesn’t operate like a nervous kid doing a “paint by number” activity.
It’s up to the farmer to determine the next step to take in managing the flock, herd, or crops so that they can survive, thrive, and improve for generations to come. If the farmer is doing something “sustainable”, they’ll know it and experience and reap the benefits. If you’re not doing something well, you’ll experience the negative results one way or other, and hopefully, learn from it.
So if my corn doesn’t sprout from these withered up corn cobs, then I did something or allowed something to happen that shouldn’t have happened. I’ll find out. I’ll experiment, I’ll try something different the next time.
I just have to comment that it’s not easy to work my camera with my left hand, while using my right hand to pull dried corn kernels off!
