Savouring Seeds Workshop

Transition Bondi offered their first Zoom workshop Savouring Seeds last month. It was fun to organise, and exciting to learn how to operate the video conferencing platform.

As a first time, we made it free of charge, and had a mix of experienced gardeners and people tip-toeing their way toward growing their first veggies. Ten people attended.

I love the sense of exploration, risk taking and creativity that the Transition Towns movement invites.  Catching the momentum of pursuing a new project, and finding collaborators to play with.

The huge topic of seeds can be approached from many angles: growing veggies in urban environments, the sharing economy, agriculture and the hazards of mono-cultures, botany and plant reproduction, fostering biodiversity, soil management, saving our pollinators, the threat of giant corporations….. Where to begin, and how to proceed?!

We decided on a simple structure as a launching pad for these topics:  Why? What? When? Where? How? and What if?

• WHY are seeds important? Why are mono-cultures a problem?
• WHAT are seeds – the life cycle of plants (a game of sequencing pictures of the life cycle of a bean plant was a good way to convey this information). What are different shapes, containers and forms of seeds? What are methods of dispersal?
• WHERE do you find seeds on a plant?
• WHEN do they form? When do you collect seed?
• HOW to save seeds? Stories from those present filled out this picture. How to plant seeds?  How to use them – apart from planting?
• WHAT if (miscellaneous questions)…. my garlic develops a seed head, is that as good a method of reproduction as sowing the bulb?

We included a list of family names of common edible plants.

We drew on the following resources:

• Seed Savers’ Handbook by Michel & Jude Fanton, A Seed Savers Book1993
• New Internationalist:  Seed Savers: the frontline against world hunger    Sept 2010
• Sustainable Food:  Michael Mobbs  A Choice Book  2012
• Video by Vandana Shiva https://youtu.be/Xar4vixyzUs (15 mins) spelling out the global issues relating to GMO and peasant farmers, and food security.

And some fun questions:

• What’s the difference between an egg and a seed?
• Is coffee a seed?  Coconut?
• What about grains?

Scroll down for a sneak peek!