It's that time of year, when the brittle husks begin to break open, scattering seeds to their fate. For a lot of the seeds in our garden that fate is to be carefully collected and stored in little white envelopes until next spring.
I cut dry, brown heads of dill and snipped the seeds off. I don't worry too much about extracting the individual seeds. It will be just as easy to do that in the spring right before I drop them into the ground.
It's amazing the diverse ways plants come up with to protect and scatter their seeds. I love these roquette pods. Each pod is divided by a translucent membrane with seeds clinging to either side. They looked so pretty held up to the light.
Fresh basil is one of my absolute favorite smells; it puts me right into a swoon. But I hadn't before experienced the smell of basil seeds. It's such a delicious, rich, autumn-y scent, so different from the vibrant, fresh, young leaves of the early summer plants, but no less intoxicating. It sums up all the good earthy, smoky, cozy feelings of fall. I'm wondering if I could use the seeds in cooking...
These I just rolled around in my hands to loosen the seeds and remove them from the stems. But again, I didn't worry too much about freeing them entirely from their pods. It would have been too labor intensive. So, they'll spend the winter snuggled in their little shells waiting for a spring day warm enough to plant and to start the cycle all over again.
Even though we didn't love the taste of the New Zealand spinach, the vibrant hot pink was such a welcome burst of color in the predominantly green garden that I think I'll plant it again just for a little visual variety. They were particularly dramatic when they went to seed and shot up as brazen pink spikes.
I've heard that when you save seeds those plants get acclimated to your little microclimate and are more resistant to the bugs and diseases in your area. I wonder how snail resistant I can get ours to be...
