Know Your Seeds

There are basically four different kinds of seed you can purchase.

1. Open Pollinated Seed.    
   This is the most natural seed, simply because it has not been interfered with in any laboratory.
   This seed is pollinated by Nature…bees, insects and wind. Occasionally by us too as we brush up against flowers and accidentally get pollen on our clothes, carrying it to another flower and so on. Sometimes we help Mother Nature a little by gently brushing the pollen from one flower to another. It’s all good! These seeds are what are commonly referred to more and more as “Organic” on the packaging. Organic seeds are fast becoming more difficult to obtain in Garden Shops etc. This is because the big seed companies are busy buying up the small seed companies, leaving the consumer with less and less choice!
2. High Yielding Seed.    These look attractive in the packet, with lots of blurb attached to get you to buy, but, these seeds thrive on chemicals and are sort of married to chemicals too! Definitely not organic and in many cases a danger to bees and insects.
3. Hybrids.   These are actually designed not to be saved!
4. G.E. Seed.   Otherwise known as GM, GMO and all about genetic engineering Nature and patenting the result. These seeds are injected with chemicals and then patented by corporations such as Monsanto. Monsanto declares to be above God Almighty, by stating, and being supported by US Law, that it created the seed!

This is merely a guide for you to build on.

Find out all you can about seed, for it is your future and that of your children.

Vandana Shiva: The seed in its essence is all of the past evolution of the Earth, the evolution of human history, and the potential for future evolution. The seed is the embodiment of culture because culture shaped the seed with careful selection—women picked the best, diversified. So from one grass you get 200,000 rices.

That is a convergence of human intelligence and nature’s intelligence. It is the ultimate expression of life, and in our language, it means “that from which life arises on its own, forever and ever and ever.”

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Here at Bealtaine Cottage in the West of Ireland I save seed…grown under Permaculture conditions which seek to protect both the integrity of the seed and the environment!

Open pollinated seed is available from Bealtaine Cottage.

Click on the link below to see the current list of seed.

http://bealtainecottage.com/seeds-for-sale/