Seed Hoarding: Part I

by Greg Ellis

I hoard seeds.  As summer ends and the seeds ripen, I cannot help myself.  I grab handfuls of fluffy milkweed.  I shake random bushes like a maniac, catching the peppery rain of seeds in a paper bag.  I rake my fingers through deer weed for its tiny pea-shaped pods. 

I have a closet full of seeds.  One closetful is not enough!  As fall progresses, acorns fill my refrigerator, then the refrigerators of friends.  My girlfriend accuses me of being a squirrel when I come home, fists and pockets bulging.

Alas, a fascination with seeds is all my grandfather left me, stashed somewhere in my genetics, passed down to him from a line of Kansas farmers along with a musty box of seed packets.  And my mom had her own closetful — mainly wildflowers in a melange of plastic bags.  I am doomed by nature and nurture to hoard seed.  Allow me introduce a few of my favorites.

Chia (Salvia columbariea) grows native to San Luis Obispo county and California and is related to other sages, such as white sage (Salvia apiana), black sage (Salvia mellifera), and hummingbird sage (Salvia spathacea).  It's one of the few natives also available on store shelves in health sections around the nation.  Chia is thought to be a staple in the diets of many indigenous peoples of the West Coast.  Santa Barbara ethnobotanist Jan Timbrook discusses Salvia seed use by humans further in her article and book. 

The chia seed, along with some other Salvias, have developed a unique adaptation, one I first discovered in a grocery store. 

The seeds are added to a bottled tea (look for 'Synergy' teas) and engorge into little, gelled balls many times their original size.  Regardless of the health benefits of the drink — there are many — the seed's adaptation as a survival mechanism is ingenious.  Chia seeds — small, smooth, and round, much like sesame seed when dry — are coated with tiny fibers that capture water when moistened.  These hairs hold the moisture close to the seed.  In areas with sparse, intermittent rainfall and high evaporation rates, this reserved moisture buys the seed time against drying.  This feature of white sage seeds was reputedly utilized by indigeneous Californians to remove grit from the eye — a seed was dropped in the eye, the eye closed and rolled around, debris collected on the sticky seed coat, and the seed was removed.  Chia is a good seed to hoard — lots of uses.  It is also speculated to be declining as the frequency of wildfires has decreased over the last hundred years due to suppression policies.

Milkweed (Aesclepias spp.) is another favorite native.  Best known as the sole food source for the monarch butterfly's caterpillar, milkweed is not a weed at all if seen in the right light.  It has beautiful, downy fibers that lift its seed in the air on the slightest breeze.  A friend of mine has used the known medicinal properties of its milky, namesake sap to cure warts.  During World War II, the milkweed fiber stuffed life vests.  Milkweed is also in decline due to development, increased mowing, and monoculture of crops.  S&S Seed Company offers the seed by the pound, along with other native seeds.  One Cool Earth's nursery at Liberty High School in Paso Robles offers potted milkweed plants for sale.

My closets overflow.

Fortunately, there is a place for those extra seeds, and a place for people like me.  For the last five years Elizabeth Johnston and an anarchic band of gardeners has gathered around the time of the harvest moon to swap seeds.  Called simply The Seed Exchange it is a riotous affair. Tables lay with seeds like contraband and gardeners fight to get the last scarlet runner beans or crocus bulbs.  This year it's Friday, Oct. 5th 6-9 p.m. at the county library in San Luis Obispo and features John DeRosier of With the Grain discussing building a living seed library in our county.

But the Seed Exchange has always been about more than just swapping seeds. It is a community forum for sharing knowledge and building connections with our past, present, future, and with each other. Below the surface of the variegated beans and bristling umbels of carrot seed passing hands, there are stories that don't always get told.  This year, the organizers are encouraging participants to bring stories as well as seed. 

My grandpa died when I was 12 and willed me two things only: one box of seeds; the gut urge of his Kansas farmer ancestors that wouldn't let me be without planting them. What's the story with your seed obsession? How did you come by those fine Egyptian walking onions? Why not plug the yucca moth (the obligate pollinator of yucca) when trading seed of Our Lord's Candle?

Feel free to make the stories as personal or objective as you like. For instance, a history of how a variety of wheat came to North America is just as acceptable as a storytelling how you stole your seeds in a midnight community garden raid.

Please write the story on a 3"x5" card and include a sample of your seeds. The stories and seed will be posted on display at the event and later digitally online. Cards will be available at the event, with clear baggies for seed samples.

Clean out those closets, at least temporarily, hoarders.  We're going to have us a Seed Exchange!

Resources

SLO Seed Exchange
With the Grain
S&S Seed Company
Chumash Ethnobotany by Jan Timbrook
Chia and the Chumash: A Reconsideration of Sage Seeds in Southern California by Jan Timbrook