2021 Annual General Meeting
The Seed Library of Galiano Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on Zoom, Sunday, October 24th at 7pm.
The Seed I Dig: Papaver somniferum
By Tricia Sharpe
There are many types of poppies to enjoy: Iceland, California & Shirley varieties are all lovely. But if you want the culinary seeds rich in nutrients and antioxidants you need to look for Breadseed poppies. Papaver somniferum.
Besides providing delicious edible seeds, this variety is drought tolerant, deer resistant, loved by bees, and produces beautiful seed pods that can be dried for arrangements. The flowers range in colour from white, pink, red to purple that look beautiful planted en masse. Direct seeding is preferable as poppies do not like their roots disturbed.
The easiest way to grow Papaver somniferum in our climate is to surface sow seeds (they need light to germinate) in September-October, keeping the area moist until germination (7-15 days). They are hardy annuals, which means they are frost tolerant and will overwinter to bloom in May. If sown in early spring they will take about 90 days to maturity from the time of germination.
They require full sun and well-drained soil that is not too fertile. Excessive nitrogen in the soil results in poppies (and most flowers) producing abundant foliar growth at the expense of flower formation. Slugs love to eat poppy seeds and seedlings so better to plant extra then thin to 9-12 inches apart. Once in bloom, individual flowers only last a couple of days, but new flowers appear continuously from the same plant over several weeks. The seed pods will increase in size after the petals fall off.
If you are wanting to harvest the pods for dried flower arrangements or wreaths, the best time is when they are still a silvery-green colour, before being rained on. Water causes marks to form that create discolored brownish pods. To harvest for culinary use however, wait until late summer/early fall when the pods are brown and hard with the tiny windows open along the top of the pod. When you shake the pod, it should sound like a rattle, indicating the seeds have loosened and detached from the inner membranes along the seed wall. Ready to eat!
I like to cut the pods and place in a container that easily catches the seeds as they pour out. Allow to air dry for a couple days then store in a dry glass jar. Make sure to leave a few pods attached or scatter some of the ones you are cutting and they will happily re-seed themselves for you.
Artemesia annua – Sweet Annie’s First Summer
by Barbara Moore, founding member Seed Library of Galiano
This plant first floated into my awareness in 2012 while browsing Dan Jason’s Salt Spring Seeds catalogue. Our daughter had just survived a pretty intense bout of malaria after working in Cameroon. And now, here, I learned, was a locally available plant I could grow as a preventive and curative.
Artemisia annua, or Sweet Annie as it is affectionately known, is part of a large genus of plants which includes many potent and well-known medicinals, some of the most notable ones being A. absinthium (wormwood) and A. vulgaris (mugwort). In fact, the healing properties of this family are so vast and remarkable that in Spanish, wormwood is often referred to as the “Hierba Maestra,” or “Master Herb.”
Artemisia avnnua has been used extensively by the Chinese (known locally as ginghao) since 340 CE mainly to treat fevers. Yet it was not until the 1970’s that the essential Artemisinin component was identified and isolated as a treatment for Malaria. However, extensive recent research has shown the plant itself to be even more effective in treating and preventing malaria than the isolated pharmaceutical compound, because of what is known as the “synergy” between many active compounds within the plant. Our daughter and son-in-law have used it in subsequent stays in West Africa with repeated and remarkable success (in their words, “miraculous”). Amazingly, in contrast to the pharmaceutical treatments, the plant both cleanses the malaria parasites entirely from the blood, and also effectively treats strains of the disease which have become resistant to conventional treatment.
Even though malaria does not touch us in this part of the world, these findings speak to the incredible properties of the plant. For example, it has recently been featured as a possible preventive and cure for Covid-19. Though the verdict is still out on this use, the plant is currently being studied in major scientific research centres such as the Max Planck Society in Germany, who, after months of analysis, announced this past June that the extracts of dried Artemisia annua have been shown in the laboratory to be effective against the Covid-19 virus.
With all this in mind, I was curious to try to grow it. Dan Jason generously offered me a couple of packets of seeds which I successfully started and transplanted this spring. It’s always exciting to try a new plant and I was delighted to watch the tiny seedlings planted in late March sprout in our indoor growing area. Then they went to the greenhouse and finally into the garden in mid May. We left a couple of plants in the greenhouse with excellent results. The largest was a towering 8 or 9 feet. Most of the outdoor plants also did well and as luck would have it, our daughter and son-in-law were here in August at the opportune time to harvest them. The goal became to grow enough for tea throughout the winter. We dried and saved about one and a half kilos to supply tea two to three times a week for two people.
Sweet Annie is a stately delicate leaved annual, with a strong, arresting aroma, pungent yet sweetly aromatic. As a tea it is equally potent tasting! The flowers are tiny and inconspicuous, announcing that harvest is due just before they flower.
So this was a most intriguing plant to grow this year especially, and it really brought home reminders of plants’ abundantly generous properties to care for us – if we are open and aware and willing to work with them.
As is often the case, the pharmaceutical companies may discredit the ‘natural properties’ as opposed to the extracted essences which they have identified as superior. This big discussion often reveals the repeated themes of profitmaking control over locally trusted autonomy.
Certainly, this plant seems potent enough to be a useful part of a local herbal pharmacopeia. There are many, many articles and resources online. I’m also happy to talk to anyone about our experience with this newly loved member of our garden.
Now time to brew some Sweet Annie tea!
Tim’s Parsnip Seeds
by Joan Robertson
It was a gift – though unasked for – a passing on from an experienced gardener to a novice: parsnip seeds, jam-packed into an unused church collection envelope. Only when I got home and sat with my four gardening books did I find out about the low germination rate of parsnip seeds. “Plant thickly!” was the advice. I did, and I swear, every single seed sprang to life, and I spent hours that summer, on my knees thinning.
I’d met Tim years before, at a retreat for return CUSO (Canadian University Students Overseas) volunteers. While most huddled, unloading feelings of guilt for their part in the cultural imperialism machine, Tim drifted through, twinkle in his eyes, nodding kindly. He’d already been up to Cambridge to read History.
That sense of play never left. In 1993, he did time for his participation in the Clayoquot Sound protests. He’d been assigned to a minimum security facility, and was apparently greeted warmly as a tree-hugger. A friend, who worked for Corrections, hurried in to get him released. Tim, however, was in the middle of a game of bridge, and wasn’t leaving ‘till the round was over.
My gardening books had parsnip seeds, along with onions, placed firmly in the ‘1 year viability’ column. So the next year, still a novice and fearing failure, I planted thickly again, and again spent time on my knees – and so it went. What my books hadn’t mentioned was what I began to notice emerging around me: sturdy stalks, shooting skyward from the parsnip roots left unharvested in the ground. By fall, they became small trees, standing in the garden like sentinels, their tassels of diaphanous seeds dancing in the wind. Once bagged, however, those seeds seemed to like their own company, gathering together in clumps, so again tended to get planted ‘thickly’ the next spring.
Tim has now, in his words, ‘left the party early.’ There was no cure for his progressive, debilitating disease. Still on my knees, thinning in the late spring, I look up, imagining Tim laughing at me, with a twinkle in his eyes.
This spring, slugs enjoyed all but three of the parsnips. I missed the energy of abundant parsnips in the garden, and, this fall, I harvested next year’s seed with extra care.
The Seed I Dig: Pineapple Tomatillo
By Rob Butterfield
Our favourite seed of the year is… Pineapple Tomatillo! Chelsa and I got these seeds from our dear friend Nan, who has grown them for the past couple years. Every seed was viable! We sprouted them indoors in early March and ended up with so many starts that we were quickly trading them with other islanders. The plants were far more resistant to Pill Bugs (aka Roly Poly’s, Potato Bugs, Wood Bugs) than all our different types of tomatoes.
The Pineapple Tomatillos even ripened before our tomatoes and have made for a delicious fried green tomato style salsa. The seeds aren’t very noticeable when eating and the flavour is pretty sweet with a tart finish. I guess these are very similar to Gooseberries or Ground Cherries. The fun of husking the little paper lantern-like fruit is a fun ceremony unless you lack the patience to get to the centre of the Tootsie Pop, like me.
We will definitely grow these again!
Notes from the Field: Capsules of Magic
by Marlene Angelopoulos
I love seeds.
Can’t think of a favourite. They are all beautiful capsules of magic, but I really like the big ones! Pumpkins! Beans! Sunflowers! Easy to see and easy to handle and easy for the grandkids to watch them push through the soil and grow. Never a problem sowing too densely. Interestingly, the seed size doesn’t indicate plant size. For example, a little tiny tomato seed can become a six foot tangle of foliage and ripening fruit. Who would have thought it needed so much space!
Why do I grow and save my own seed? Seeds = food. To maintain a food chain free from GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) and to control my own food supply. To promote and preserve our agricultural heritage.
By growing seed genetically adapted to my specific climate and soil, I develop plants with proven performance, disease and pest resistance, superior quality, and most importantly: “Taste!”
Some saved seeds have stories. My sister and I still grow Dead Dad’s Beans. I know that’s a quirky name, but after he passed over 25 years ago it was how we started to identify them and it stuck. A memory. I still have a small vial of grain seed that was my grandfather’s. We are the living link of sometimes hundreds of years of growing heirloom plants.
Take your turn as a grower of these cherished crops. Save your seeds and keep planting!
Favourite Food, Favourite Plant or Favourite Seed?
By Barry New, Seed Library of Galiano
I could give a number of answers but in the end for me thinking about seeds, it must be beans. I am now growing broad beans, bush beans, pole beans and especially Scarlet Runner beans. My runner beans could have been with me from 25-year-old saved seed. It is only recently that I have found a better way to enjoy the variety of dishes made from them. Beans do well in our soil and climate and it is not a crop that we have to be concerned about crop rotation. They enhance the soil.
Eat them fresh and young or open the pods for the more mature bean and use in many dishes. It is very useful to have a crop of beans dried in the pod to use throughout the winter. These can dry on the vine well into the Fall without concerns.
Beans are a staple food for many cultures, significant in nutritional value, and complement potatoes and grains. I am surprised broad beans are not more popular. I ate a young one this morning; May 23rd. They have a very long season and could be prolific. The best dish I have found is to make a bean pate with the dried bean: soaked overnight, boiled until tender and then easily peeled and flavoured to taste.
Beans are fun to grow. They could be problematic with planting them in the cool wet weather we have here in the Spring. They are vulnerable to slugs. Otherwise they germinate relatively quickly and are robust growers once the season warms up. To be sure, start them in seed trays or small pots or directly in the soil; I do all three.
Update from the Seed Library
By Colleen Doty
We’ve all heard of the surge in pandemic victory gardens. Alongside sourdough baking, it’s a comforting trend.
Since March 11, when the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic, global demand for seed has spiked to unprecedented levels (CBC, Mar. 27; CTV News, April 15). Seed retailers have been overwhelmed with orders; stock has shorted.
Reuters reported that Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Fairfield, Maine, saw a 270% jump in orders the week of March 16, after U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus. Wayne Gayle, President of Canada-based Stokes Seeds, which ships to the United States and Canada, received 1,000 online orders during the weekend of March 21, four times more than normal.
Closer to home, the Seed Library of Galiano saw a 123% increase over the previous year in the amount of seed being borrowed by its members (now totaling 106 households on Galiano). This year, new membership increased by 15%.
There is now greater urgency to save seed. While the inter-related issues of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and corporate consolidation of seed companies make seed-saving critical, the rapid shut-down caused by the pandemic has made seed-saving urgent. As geneticist and plant breeder Carol Deppe has noted, until recently, all gardeners and farmers used to save their own seed. So what happened between then and now? The world changed, and now it’s changing again. But that’s a discussion for another article.
Back to the Seed Library. How does it work? The basic concept is much like a book library. One borrows seeds, and returns a fresh batch of seed in the fall/winter. More specifically, Galiano-grown seeds are borrowed in the spring, planted, grown into food that is enjoyed, with seed saved from the best selection of plants, and then a portion of seed returned to the library in the fall/winter. All our seed is open-pollinated and grown without the use of pesticides.
It’s gratifying to grow seed that will contribute to someone else’s plate (and your own) the following year. Anyone who saves seed is part of the age-old process of plant breeding, as they select the best seed from locally-adapted plants, and with each successive planting, continue to select desirable qualities that work in their conditions. I don’t know about you, but I always remember the people who grew the original seed that I now love to grow every year. I’m struck by the joy people exude when they share their favorite seed.
In typical years past, the Seed Library has held regular work parties where we get together in the fall/winter, sort, and package returned seed which will then get shared back with the community the following spring. The work parties will look a little different this year. Stay tuned for more details.
The Seed Library will need returned seed more than ever for spring 2021.
Unsure how to save seed? There are great online resources: Seeds of Diversity is one of my favorites at www.seeds.ca.
Seed Savers Exchange also has excellent tips and resources on how to save seed, at: www.seedsavers.org.
You can contact us at seedlibraryofgaliano@gmail.com, or, if you’re on Facebook we’re at: @seedlibraryofgaliano.
Colleen Doty
