Serendipitous Seed Saving

in Natural Medicine3 years ago

I didn't mean to do it. I went out to my veggie patch one day in August of 2020, and a gigantic zucchini had suddenly materialized. I'd overheard a real gardener say that, once a zucchini plant produces a single over-large fruit, there will be no more zucchini fruit from that plant.

I left that gigantic zucchini right in my veggie plot, still attached to its vine, to see for myself. I then watched the rest of the plant die over the next few weeks. By sometime in September, my veggie patch had nothing in it but decaying leaves, and one enormous zucchini.

I thought the fruit was cool, so I picked it and gave it a featured spot on a stone bench just inside my front door. There it lay for a good six months, unphotographed I'm afraid, through the coldest days and nights, seemingly unfazed by the winter air. When it warmed up, however, the fruit collapsed, became quite unattractively shmushy, and got tossed back into my future veggie patch.

I hadn't erected my Critter Control Contraption yet, and expected animals to find that zucchini tasty. Something did nibble away at it some, but under what little flesh was left, there was a woody layer that, apparently, the critters could not get through. I found it impossible to tear myself. Finally, I tried bending the whole fruit, and it broke to expose tons of seeds inside.

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I found the nearly petrified fruit strangely beautiful again, and took some shots of it, then tossed it back into my emerging veggie patch, to mark the place I'd be planting one of the zucchini seedlings I had started a couple weeks earlier.

Those seedlings did not come up. 100% failure rate in store bought seeds for the second year in a row.

Just on a whim, I shoved a few of my desiccated zucchini's seeds into the barren soil cells of the non-emergent, store-bought, zucchini seeds.

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Less than a week later, at least one seed is charging up!

I've snatched that desiccated zucchini back out of my veggie patch.

Unless another zucchini transmutes from some other dimensional existence into the three dimensional coordinates of my veggie patch this year, I'll be saving some of those seeds to see if they come up again in 2022.

Why not?

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Presenting a Photo Shoot of a Desiccated Zucchini

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Unassuming powerhouse of life in the veggie bed

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That loufa-like layer is an effective protective layer for the seeds


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Using my phone and computer camera skills to the max to produce visual art

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Last one. I think these are all beautiful

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all images are mine
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Posted on NaturalMedicine.io

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 3 years ago  

I love the story you wove in with this!
They do say that the best seeds for the area you're in come from a plant which grew there originally. I hope you have an abundant crop from them.

@tipu curate

Thank you so very much!!!

Haha I like how you said "a real gardener". That's how I felt with my superiors last year when I was working as a horticulture intern. I have a turban squash that I desiccated (on purpose) except it managed to keep its beautiful shape. I also cut a small hole to remove the seeds. With proper storage, a little luck, and if you don't lose them, the rest of those seeds should still be viable next season.

Good to know. You sound like a real gardener to me! You must feel like one by now. I'm winging it.

So is desiccating veggies a technique for seed saving? I also let a green bean stay on its plant until it broke open on its own, then brought them into the house. With these, my intent was to try to save them, and I've planted those. A bit early for around here, I realized too late. But the zucchini was pure human luck, managing somehow to follow nature's way.

I feel a poem coming on -

with luck
nature's way
unfolds

More like a fortune cookie message, but it was a nice way to start me day. Thanks.

Haha nice micro poem! Yes, drying your fruits is a good way to save your seeds, keep them preserved, and while still looking like the original fruit so you don't forget what the seeds are! It works with all members of the squash family (as you know) along with peppers and even small tomatoes or berries! They can dry al natural but a nice hot vent will speed up the process too.