Monday, June 25, 2012

Saving Seeds of Chives

The green spikes shot toward the sky, reaching up toward the clouds.  Purple teardrops atop slender shoots slowly opened into magnificent feathered balls of violet and white.

Their splendid posture held for weeks, until time finally won, and the chives aged.  They did so gracefully, rather than suddenly, and the process was dignified.

At last, however, it was time for the chives to bow to the laws of nature, and their blooms began to dry.

Still, I waited.  Patience, after all, is a virtue.  It's also one that I really, really need to work at!

Finally, the waiting period ended.  I examined the once white and purple flowers, which had become beige.  All of the purple had washed away, causing the chives to look like a canvas that an artist had left out in the rain.



What looked like black pebbles had begun to jut out to the surface, breaking the washed-out monotony.

It was time.

I'd never worried about saving seeds before.  My favored plants had always been perennials, so all I had to do was wait until the following year, and - POOF! - instant happiness.  Things are different now that I'm renting a home, however.

Sure, chives come up every year if you just leave them alone.  They're great at re-seeding themselves, if you allow them to.  

I don't know if I'll be here to enjoy it next year, though, so it's better to save a few seeds from this amazingly healthy herb so that if I do move, I can still enjoy them wherever I am next.  

Knowing absolutely nothing about seed saving, however, meant that I had to learn how to do it.  Can I just grab the seeds and place them somewhere cool to await the next year, or is there some strange mystical methodology that needs to be used?



Onward I went, on the quest for enlightenment.

That was when I found FarmTina.  Tina's blog had a post on saving seeds from chives, and it turns out that no magic wands or test tubes are needed, much to my relief.  Indeed, all I needed to do was wait as long as I did, then flick the seeds out into a container.

Yay!

Naturally, I ran outside with excitement and did that very thing.  Looks like I'll have seeds to plant next year if I'm in a new home!


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