Henny Penny Farmette

Greek oregano is popping up all over the garden

Some lettuces, basil, and Greek oregano have spontaneously appeared in my garden. No surprise in that since I let some of my herbs and vegetables go to seed last year.

We used the rototiller on the garden area twice before planting this year. By the time we turned the soil, the vegetables and herbs I had planted last year were a memory. That said, some certainly did re-seed and the evidence of that are the new plants popping up where I didn’t plant them this year.

Open-pollinated vegetable and herb seeds, well tended (meaning, meeting the seed needs of light, water, and good soil), will go through the cycle of sprouting, pushing up through the earth, blooming, bearing, and dying. If you let your plant go to seed and the wind broadcasts the seed or it drops, you will likely (in the case of  oregano, basil, chives, and other herbs and some vegetables) get new offspring.

The plant that the mother seed produced will also yield seed (and if you are smart and save some), that seed will repeat the same cycle and the vegetable will also be a true likeness of the original seed. Everything starts with the integrity of the seed.

This is why open-pollinated (OP) seed continue to perform in the same way their ancestors have for hundreds, even thousands of years. And nature’s plant cycles make that possible.

Tags: basil, chives, lettuce, open-pollinated seed, oregano