I’m a seed
So, it’s right now on any day, a good time to talk about seeds. Depending on who’s counting, there are possibly up to 300,000 plant species on Earth and 70% reproduce by spreading seeds.
Seed sizes range from teeny tiny dust-like orchid seeds to the coco de mer palm seed weighing more than 50 pounds. Regarding shapes, dandelion seeds are considered oblanceoloid, but you knew that. They gladly go where the wind goes. Watermelon seeds are a flat oval. Sweet gum balls contain seeds in the spaces between the spikes. Isn’t that clever. Kale seeds are tiny brown spheres.
We think of carefully planting seeds a certain distance below the surface– melon seeds an inch deep, okra and onion seeds a half inch, cosmos ¼-inch or less, and you barely cover honeywort and celosia seeds. Lavender and lobelia seeds need light to germinate, so they are lightly pressed onto soil. Light stimulates photosensitive components in these seeds when it’s time to wake up, just like for me. Seeds that need light to germinate are called photoblastic, your garden word for the day.
One source said lettuce seeds are photoblastic, but I plant lettuce seeds to about the depth of my fingernail. If a gardener allows a couple lettuce plants to go through the whole life process of sending up a central stalk, flowering and bearing seeds, they might produce enough seeds for you and all your neighbors for next year and the next. I have taken seeds directly off an old lettuce plant still standing and planted them with happy results.
Purslane plants sometimes appear unannounced in garden beds because the seeds allegedly might remain viable up to 40 years. I’m unsure how that claim was verified because it would take half a lifetime of patient, diligent observation. Well-kept melon seeds might last for ten years, but the eventual plant might not be as productive at year ten compared to year three.
I planted a pack of ten-year old turnip seeds years ago not expecting much, and every seed sprouted. Good thing I like turnips. I had kept the seeds in the original unopened packet with my other seeds in a basket on a shelf in my office. I covered the basket with a woven cloth from Mexico and the seed packets were in alphabetical order, so maybe that helped.
Gardeners carefully plant seeds at appropriate depths in well-prepared soil and then add water. Depending on your point of view, either water softens up and soaks into the seed or the seed absorbs water. It’s nature’s way. Regardless of perspective, the point is what happens next.
A dampened dried brown bean seed sprouts roots downward and a stalk or vine upward toward the light with branches onto which leaves, flowers and pods appear. Impressive. There must have been a fortuitous confluence of events which created the first plant seed which noticed the environment needed more greenery, and its mission began. But first, it absorbed some water.
And soil temperature also matters as does friability. Loose fertile soil allows oxygen which seeds need into the soil and allows carbon dioxide released by seeds to escape into the atmosphere. Clumpy soil or too much water is a big bummer at sprouting time.
Radish seeds can sprout as quickly as a week. Parsley seeds take three weeks or more because, according to legend, the seeds must travel to Hell and back several times before sprouting. Carrot seeds are also slow to sprout – maybe as long as three weeks – until soil temps warm up, plus their viability wanes after a few years. Onion seeds lose their mojo after only a couple years.
If you plant hybrid seeds, the resulting plant will produce seeds that, if saved for next year, will be non-viable or unreliable. It’s a safer bet to save seeds from plants grown from open-pollinated seeds. If open-pollinated seeds have been regrown and passed down for several decades, they are considered heirlooms. To perpetuate a variety in your garden for decades makes it a family member.