It’s All About the Seeds from the February 2023 ACG Newsletter
– Sandy Chang
A little meeting announcement on the tool shed door carries with it much excitement – excitement not at the contention-prone meetings but in the tiny fine print on the bottom of the notice announcing a seeds giveaway!
Seeds are the soul of the garden and seed giveaways are always a blast! Back in the days when gardeners were allowed an unlimited number of seed packets, the membership turned up in droves carrying with them water bottles, wide-brimmed hats, and unusually large tote bags. After hurried hellos, gardeners wasted no time before storming the thousands of packets of flower, herb and vegetable seeds! The old-timers say that the key to seed success is the ability to scan quickly and still not miss that one packet of purple okra or albino beet stuck between a stack of broccolis. When a rarity comes up, snatch it before those next to you perusing their own stack while eyeing yours, beat you to it! While most learned to hoard a plethora of seeds, everyone aspired to be the true cutthroats with the extraordinary ability to check for expiration dates in the middle of a bloodbath. Oftentimes, a rare-find is left for a reason, such that its Best-Use-By-Date has come and gone for nearly a decade! After all, there is nothing worse for gardeners than, having soaked their prized seeds, sown them tenderly and tended them diligently, to reap only a few anemic seedlings destined for doom. The triumphant early birds dump tons of seeds into their oversized totes – enough to start a corner nursery – while late arrivals pick through the leftovers dejectedly, all the cabbage, kale and the like.
On the date of the meeting, seeds were nowhere in sight, an obvious attempt to deter grab-and-go, I rationalized. After all, the point is to drill through the agenda as one body! So, for the sake of the seeds, gardeners debated through budgetary concerns, dumpster violations, and water waste until red in the face, veins popping, voice becoming hoarse and then suddenly, it is over and time for seeds! Anxiously I waited and waited, still nothing but the fast dwindling crowd. Before too long everyone had left. Shifting uncomfortably, Silvera muttered something about rescheduling as I decried false advertisement!
A few weeks later after I had stopped dreaming of seeds, a text flashed across the phone announcing the illusive giveaway.
True to the promise this time, a bed of seeds organized by categories and dates lay in neat long rows – crisp packets of flower, herb and vegetable waiting to be discovered by their gardener and sown into their forever soil bed!
Roosevelt and I show up early and station ourselves strategically; he imparts wisdom on how to speed cook collards while I share cilantro recipes as we peruse blissfully and pass good finds to one another. As the crowd gets bigger, Silvera goes around reminding folks that each person is limited to 12 packets. As the rules evolve, so must the strategy. Roosevelt and I secure our allotments early, continue to leaf through the selections, and trade up when something more exotic comes along! This season, the treasure find for Roosevelt is rainbow chard and for me, it is lima beans! After an intense half-hour, the livelihood of our plots is secured for the foreseeable future. I head home to read all about lima beans and dream dreams of tender green shoots.
Special thanks to the UC Master Gardener Program for the generous donation of seeds, and to Silvera Grant, the Garden’s President, for year after year of procuring, transporting, distributing, packing and unpacking seeds for the enjoyment and use of gardeners all over Altadena and beyond.