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Seed Saver

May 23rd, 2010

I’m a seed saver. Not one of the scholarly types who saves seeds from actual plants, I just save leftover store-bought seeds that didn’t get planted. My mom did the same thing and had old packets of flower and veggie seeds, some going back to the fifties. She did some traveling in her life and had seeds from France and Germany- pretty, delicate wildflowers that probably wouldn’t grow in the hot humid summers in Indiana. As a child I loved going through her boxes of seeds, admiring the old lithograph-style illustrations of flowers and vegetables, so much nicer than today’s gaudy, color-enhanced photos.

So yesterday when I was finally getting to do some planting in our garden after nearly ten days of rain and grey skies, I thought I’d dig out my seed box and plant some more squash and different varieties of cucumbers. The seeds were in a plastic box in the shed, but somehow the lid went missing, and my heart sank when I realized that some lucky mouse had munched its way through my seed packets. I sat down on the back porch step to take inventory of the damage.

No more summer squash, zucchini, or winter squash seeds, no more sugar snap peas, or oriental peas. Radish seeds were sampled and rejected, lima beans weren’t touched (can’t blame him there). The thoughtful creature had mostly left the flower seeds alone, with the exception of most of the sunflower seeds- missed one packet, and inexplicably one packet of sweet corn. The paper packets had been nibbled up and made into a snug little bed, along with the hulls of the seeds. Having been properly raised on Beatrix Potter books, and “Wind in the Willows” and such, it was hard for me to be too angry at the little fellow. I imagined him quite pleased with himself, munching through those years of accumulated seeds, dreaming at night of gardens full of squash and nodding sunflowers, snug in his little bed all through the winter. I did find some cucumber seeds and planted those. I sorted out the intact seed packets and pitched the chewed up bits and loose seeds on the compost pile- perhaps something will take root there.

Later I’ll go off in search of new squash seeds, and a new box- with a lid.

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