Never underestimate the power of a seed.

In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful

coriander seeds drying

16 Dec 2014. 1.30 am

 Everyone’s on holiday so the tempo has changed. Late breakfasts, early supper, snacks and movies – but first chores and holiday programmes to adhere to.

I am tossing and turning, it’s too hot to fall asleep. I have to close my door because the kittens are also unable to sleep and mew for milk and attention and scurry around. This morning the Wolverine brought us a live gift of a small frog, everytime Leo wants to come closer he has this deepthroat growl that even scares us. He paws it around and nips at it until it is dead. Then sits and looks at me with eyes that say: “do you like it? I caught it for you.” “Bad Kitty!”

Early this evening Abu and I went to check on the squash and butter nuts growing at the back of the property. A school building is being erected there now. So we started picking the squashes because they are so big. We just could not stop lifted up the leaves we picked 24 squashes from one bush only. Imagine that – from only one seed that I planted in the winter. The butternuts are not ready to be picked yet but just as many and the makataan melons are running the gauntlet with yellow flowers all over their tentacles which will be pollinated and then bear more fruits inshaAllah.

It never ceases to amaze me - the power inside the seed. We plant many plants from seed – linseed, artichokes, danya, spinach, parsley, lettuce, cabbage, radish, turnips, rocket, onion, basil, tomatoes, peas and beans. Mind you, we also bought some plugs of chili and pepper, brinjal and asparagus, okra and herbs, I am always on the lookout for something completely different.

red chard seeding

Seeds are so much cheaper to plant. All one has to do is to eat from the vegetables and leave some to sprout like this and dry out and then harvest them.

 

But of course it takes a bit of work and patience to see it sprout from the soil. At the moment, I have many vegetables seeding such as red swiss chard, chinese cabbage, coriander, linseed, lettuce, chives, onions, fennel, rocket. The flowers attract the pollinators to the garden and as a bonus I have many seeds when they dry in the summer heat and next week I will gather them in different little containers ready for next year inshaAllah.

apricot from seed

1 yr old lemon

We have planted lemon trees from pips, an orange, an apricot, a plum, avocado, mango, litchi, all just with a bismillah and they sprouted and are growing so well. All of the cucurbits – water melon, cucumber, squash, calabash and butternut are from seeds I kept aside.

The magnificent poppy flush we had in late spring, early summer was from one dried head of seeds from a friend. Now I have a box full. The sweetpea pods are also dried and waiting to be collected. The linseed was a handful of seeds that I sowed and I have an entire patch still waiting to be harvested after I picked and cleaned ad rubbed out the seeds between my hands; given many to friends and family, hoping they will experience the same joy of watching the seeds sprout, grow taller and bloom those tiny purple flowers.

date seedlings

One can plant strawberries, figs, loquats, pomegranate, pawpaw, dates and many other fruits from their seed but because it takes a bit longer we bought some trees from the nursery about a metre tall – this what they look like now. And these are the ones that were planted from seed and these were the ones that just germinated in the sand where someone stood and enjoyed fruit and threw the seeds in the soil.



lettuce seeding

Best of all I love the little surprises that the wind brings such as the feverfew, random tomatoes and peppers and lettuce and the beautiful marigolds. The seeds of the nasturtiums and borage are coming up everywhere after we took the old plants out that were overcrowding the strawberries.

Grow food and plant seeds even when Qiyaamah is imminent.

Yasmine