In cupped hands

Seed saving is addictive. Not quite in the league of ‘sell your granny for a fix’ but fairly up there. It tends to start with an innocuous dried beige pod that cracks open to reveal a plump, glossy multi-coloured bean resplendent in a silky cocoon. This then leads to the amateur seed saver observing seeds using the most outrageously inventive ways to extend their reach. They hook onto passing animals, twirl valiantly through the air or merely look tasty, get eaten and pooped out randomly in a wild game of chance. After the wonder of observing all this you then start to gather seeds. Or perhaps they begin to gather you. This in turn leads to pockets filled with spikey seeds, or fluffy seeds or rough textured flower-heads. Crumpled napkins in jeans, notes scrawled with ‘teasels from the long hill’ or ‘daisy like red flowers from window box near café’

You are now doomed. A seed slave. Helplessly serving the natural world to spread itself around as flagrantly as possible.

The utter marvelousness of it all revealed itself to me fully one day as I was standing at the post office waiting to post a parcel. The small package was addressed to my dear friend Phillippa and inside was a selection of herb, flower, vegetable and fruit seeds. Neatly packaged and labelled seeds of open pollinated stripey yellow and red maize, dreadlocked red amaranthus, bitter chicory, vivid orange pumpkin, fragrant dill and so many more.

 It dawned on me as I stood in that queue that I was holding cupped in my hands the most incredibly anarchist tool. This parcel was, in all potentiality a massive field full of colour, food, smells and tastes, medicine and soil enhancers. There I was, with a small container holding a potent and powerful universe for so many insects, birds, people and animals. It completely filled my heart with joy and the post office attendant must have seen this in my face as she said ‘Is this a gift for someone special?’ . ‘So many’ I beamed back at her.

Welcome to my world of seed obsessed, wild, change-making delights!