The herbs & vegetables grown from the seeds in the box on the left were eaten by my family & I this summer, with any excess nutrition passing through our bodies as urine.
I collected it all up (seen above) and I fed it back to the plants (watered down 1/10) so the seeds in the box on the right are now entangled in some sense with the genetics of my family. And the most obvious forgotten cycle of all is back in action here.
Even Esteban gets it.
On a more measurable level, the €500 box of seeds on the left has now multiplied by around x10 to produced the box on the right.
Plus the seeds are organic and non GMO, which means that having now spent one season in our soil with the space and time to produce seeds, the next generation will be that little bit more adapted to our particular micro-climate here on the side of a mountain.
I can already see where the flowering lettuces once stood how their seeds are popping up with more vigour than their parents did. Behind them are some winter lettuces waiting for the colder weather to sweeten up their flavour.
We will start eating these 2nd generation lettuces in just a few weeks to thin them out a bit.
While I have you, here are a few other items from the garden, shot today.
x2 cherry tomato plants here. One red, one yellow.
Behind the cherry tomatoes is our leek zone, alongside some peppers.
We have managed to grow around 10 squash, most of them pollinated by hand because the insects did not appear to be doing the job sufficiently.
The cucumbers are still going strong.
And the peppers are producing incredibly well now, despite their ragged appearance.
Finally here is a watermelon I discovered just yesterday. Had no idea it was growing there until now! The base was very damp so I put it in a box.
Like many of the things in our garden, it just magically appeared ;)
Remember the purple potatoes which popped up when my purple potato seeds never showed up from China coz of come crazy virus?
https://peakd.com/hive-123046/@samstonehill/a-feeling-manifested-into-a-thousand-colours
There is a word which keeps coming up for me:
Biodiversity. Nothing ever grows alone in nature.
If you can accomplish sufficient biodiversity, with a cyclical feeding system, miracles happen. Simple as that.
Love & Light everyone 🌱