October 29, 2015

‘Red Frills’ mustard sows itself around my vegetable garden. Some seeds survive composting and I find mustard with my perennials. Errant seedlings get moved to a tidy row next to lettuce or spinach for color contrast. 

Ditto for celery which I allow to set seed for the pollinators. I often move a seedling to a container situated to catch only morning sun and have celery through the summer months.

Other seedlings I can count on:

Sweet peas

Calendulas and many other flowers such as milkweed, larkspur, forget-me-nots, johnny-jump-ups and feverfew freely self-sow in my garden. Some are grown with the vegetables to attract pollinators.

Read an informative post in Mother Earth News by Barbara Pleasant:

Self-Seeding Crops You’ll Never Need to Replant

Some crop plants are self-seeding. With a bit of light management each generation can be coaxed into providing seeds season after season.

One of the characteristics of a truly sustainable garden is that it produces at least some of its own seed. This is most often done when gardeners select, harvest and store seeds until the proper time for planting the following year. But some self-seeding crops produce seeds so readily that as long as you give them time to flower and mature, and set seed, you will always have free plants growing in your garden. Read more