Propagation!

Our buttercrunch lettuce has gone to seed. Part of me is very happy because this is exactly what I want all of our plants to do. 100% total self sufficiency. Part of me is sad though too because I’ve discovered that buttercrunch is not my favorite type of lettuce.

Nonetheless, I’ve gathered the seeds into a jar and will store them for planting next year. Collecting the seeds is easy. You wait until the seed pod is wilting and then you grab the seeds. They'll have little floaters on them, like dandelion seeds do. I kept them on - too lazy to remove them.

I’m really curious to see if they’ll produce viable plants. Plants that have been developed on the genetic level will sometimes have that issue with them, they are unable to produce viable offspring (think of mules). What that basically means is you have to keep buying seeds forever. That’s what I would call a sustainable business practice.

Our parsley is doing something weird too. I can’t tell what yet, but I think it is trying to flower & seed also. I’m just sitting and watching right now, even though I know that we’re reducing our yield on it, but I’m willing to trade a lot in the name of science. If it does go to seed, I’ll be really excited.

By the way, our chives and green onions have been doing the same thing for weeks now, but collecting the seeds didn't really cross my mind until now. I grabbed some of them and now we have two jars of seeds we can sow. With green onions and chives, you cut the the entire flower head off when the petals are wilted and dried. Then you put it is a container and shake it to separate the seeds from everything else.

I'm not really sure what to do with the seeds right now, but you can be sure that there will be a masked bandit sowing them in a random place in the dead of night soon...