SELF-PRODUCTION OF SEEDS

“But the seeds are invisible. They all sleep in the secret of the earth until one of them gets the whim to wake up.

Then he stretches out and timidly makes a splendid, harmless sprout towards the sun "

Antoine de saint-exupéry

There is a passage in a book by Anna Martellato which immediately catapulted me to this period of the year.

It says:

«… A green comma carrying a seed splits in two. Day after day that green viscera grew, the seed fell and the comma became a sprout, with only two leaves. It grew again, became a seedling and made more leaves… ».

Our vegetables are born in part from the seeds that my father has always obtained by himself from the best vegetables of each season, letting them ripen on the plant and then collect them and take the seeds that will be part of the next year's production. And we have brought this practice back to the company, following the development of the seedlings starting from the seed up to the fielding and harvesting of their fruits.

Because in the seeds there is the story and there is the design. Because it is from our seeds that we begin to test what the garden will be and therefore to organize our seedbed. And already in January we started, with the peppers that have longer germination times than everything else.

The self-production of seeds that does not admit mistakes is a small big undertaking because the degree of germination depends on many factors.

From the condition of the seeds themselves, for example, for which they must be removed from the fruit at the right time. From their cleaning, which must be careful not to leave traces of the pulp of the vegetable, or filaments or jelly of the same. In fact, to prevent certain residues from remaining, we usually wash them well under running water.

We must then let them dry just as well because they literally have to dry, so that the humidity is completely removed: we do this in a natural way, exposing the well-washed seeds to the sun and mixing them sometimes and then so that they do not stick to each other. .

And then there is their conservation, because they must rest in the dark and in a cool place, placed in glass jars, from the moment of selection until the moment they are planted.

Months of waiting go by, it's a bit like a lethargy from which to slowly awaken nature. But it's always magic.