Originally posted by otherpotato
Will they really reseed? I don;t remember seeing them go to seed last year and would swear these are the same plants I planted that didn't do much
last year. I'd be happy if they did reseed and spread because this is exactly where I wanted them - in front of the garlic. I'll take the experiment
In my experience, and I maintain mass amounts of seeds and get to play around in ways most people wouldn't even think of, most things you see at the
grocery store don't reseed so well.
For example, here is the seed mass we'll be broadcast sowing over my friends 7 acre Florida property this year, as an experiment. Its dense growth,
most of it. That's a 1 gallon sized ziplock bag laid flat on the counter there. There's a good 150+ species/cultivars in there; annuals and
perennials. At least 1,000,000 seeds. That's the by product of last years seed pre-packing efforts:
We did a similar ordeal to a very remote property within the circle, 3 years ago, but haven't been back up there yet to check on it. It's really wild
out there and am anxious to get back up there to see what might have endured.
Exceptions are things with very small seeds, especially those that drop massive amounts of them from each plants (basil, amaranth). Its not to say
they wont, its to say don't expect them to.
It's a matter of longevity. The longer your grounds remain under operations, the more and more the 'weeds' that sprout up are the things you normally
work for. Here I grow year round. Been doing so for several years now. But you always have weeds. The better you keep out those weeds, the higher the
ratio you can expect.
Composting everything helps, it keeps those desired seeds going back into the soils.
Not letting the proper-weeds set seeds before you pull them makes all the difference.
There are different problems with everyday expected veggies. One is people have coddled them for so long they expect us to be there to make it all
happen. Tht thinds that are the product of us have been trained o pujt all of their energies into awesome 'fruit' production instead of their
abilities to COMPETE with all the weeds that know nothing but 1000's of years of how to do almost nothing but compete. Many of the plants I deal with
have had human operators for so many thousands of years they no longer even produce seeds. Several would no longer exist if humans weren't around, and
some I know of face extinction as a result of that and power-tripping legislatures. Couple this with, many seeds wont properly sprout unless at a
proper depth. Then what turns this upside down is the big cash crops have had many many generations of humans hammering down these cultivars so that
all the seed swill sprout within a specific time period. This is essential for commercial crop production. Meanwhile the weeds you hate, they're
genetically programmed to sprout at totally random intervals so there's always going to be seeds that succeed in sprouting for years to come, even
while some will sprout quite literally immediately.
This all is yet but more motivation to put such energies towards perennials: most of these restrictive ordeals outlined above don't apply to plants
that are genetically programmed to endure such odds.
edit on 14-5-2013 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss because: (no reason given)