Why is saving vegetable seeds so hard? Field notes tell you

Lead image/ Garland chrysanthemum seeds: you have to pry open the whole dried flower to get at them

The first thunder of spring has sounded, and a little throat-soothing rain has fallen.

The vegetable garden landscape behind the office has changed a bit too. Every year between October and November, the gardens scattered throughout the countryside begin to fill up with all kinds of vegetables, and the backyard is no exception. The aunties nearby diligently tend them morning and evening, and the office, which cooks occasionally, gets a share of fresh vegetables, or when it is short of scallions or garlic, someone can quietly slip into the garden to solve the problem.

But now it seems to be slowly ceasing to be vegetable season. In the garden you can still see peanuts, and longer-season crops like chili peppers and eggplants from the nightshade family, plus the water spinach planted just a while ago. And the garland chrysanthemum and A-chai (stem lettuce) that I most often went to check on were also cleared away two weeks ago when the uncle took a weed trimmer to the field weeds, because those dried, straggling seedlings really did look too messy.

By the way, that batch of straggling, insect-attracting, flower-and-seed-bearing, dried-out, aged vegetables that no longer looked like vegetables had been kept specially for me by the aunt.

In mid-February, while the aunt was working in the garden, I struck up a chat with her. She said she had only learned to grow vegetables in the past two or three years, starting after her mother passed away. You really could not tell, because she grows them so well.

The garland chrysanthemum and A-chai beside her had both grown stems as tall as a person and were getting ready to flower and set seed. I tried to ask the aunt how to collect the seeds, and she said she did not know either; she told me to ask the older aunt on the other side of the kitchen, but none of these had really bloomed yet, so I would have to wait a while longer. Because I had shown interest, the aunt deliberately set aside these two plots, and the rest of the vegetables were all turned into the soil the next day, ready for new planting.

 
(A-chai / pointed-leaf garland chrysanthemum: vegetables you normally have to look down at, after the stems shoot up vigorously and they get ready to flower and set seed, they are nearly as tall as a person)

And so I began a long, foolish wait. I had thought those stems were already so tall, and many looked ready to bloom, but who knew that hoping every day would mean disappointment every day. Through the passage of time, I finally understood why the aunties say, "A packet of seeds costs ten dollars and that is already plenty, don't bother with all that trouble."

Waiting for the stems to emerge one after another, then buds to form, then buds to open, and finally for them to wither and dry out, I waited a whole month and more before there were seeds to take out; and by then, the vegetables the aunt had replanted were just about ready to harvest. Given how things go, I suppose it is no wonder people would rather dig up the aged vegetables, turn the soil, and plant again, since seeds are so cheap and easy to get, instead of spending another month, letting the garden attract a lot of insects and look messy, and then keeping those seeds.

With melons, beans, grains, and the like, the seeds are among the crops we harvest, so it is a bit easier. With vegetables grown for their tender green leaves, taking the time to wait for seeds really comes down to a personal choice, since we have already moved toward a society where everything must be fast.

Finally, let us look at this process of seed formation. Those of you who grow vegetables, besides harvesting them, might also try the fun of not harvesting and saving seed.

(After the A-chai flowers wither, seeds form; like many wildflower vegetables, the seeds have white pappus to help them fly and spread)

(Once the seeds are more mature, all kinds of insects come gathering on the whole plant)

(The garland chrysanthemum flowers likewise drew many moths and small insects)