Stirring the Cauldron

New Moon Newsletters from Jessica Prentice

New Seed Moon

March moondark kitchen notes
from Jessica Prentice

The moon is new! We have just moved through the Spring Equinox -- the day when lightness and darkness hover in balance as daytime and nighttime hours are equal. The days are getting longer, and will continue to do so until the summer solstice on June 21. Spring has officially sprung, and we have entered the Seed Moon, also often called the Egg Moon.

Seeds and eggs are not so dissimilar -- both are little packages of precious life, carrying the genetic material safely within a protective shell that will create the next generation. Give each what it needs -- the right amount of water for the seeds, the right amount of warmth for the eggs -- and each will burst forth with the miracle of new life: the seed will sprout, the egg will hatch. Sprouting and hatching are enduring metaphors for change, and for new beginnings, and for the workings of the divine. I love eggs, and am passionate about the fact that real, honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned free-range eggs from well-treated chickens are a close to perfect food. I go to great lengths to defend them as a Good Thing. But I wrote about eggs at this time last year on the Egg Moon (check it out) and this year it is seeds that are on my mind.

Every culture and every religious tradition uses seeds to teach us about life. While many people don't think of the Bible as having a mystical or earth-centered approach to spirituality, I beg to differ.

Natural processes are used again and again in the Bible to teach us about the sacred and to help us to understand God. I have always particularly loved the parable of the mustard seed, where Jesus asks:

The point seems to be that not only is the potential for life and growth within a tiny, seemingly insignificant seed awe-inspiring, but also that the life that it brings forth is not life in isolation. It is life that is connected through relationship -- to the birds that nest in its branches. It doesn't even mention whether the plant produces seeds that humans eat. Apparently it is not about the satisfaction of human needs. My understanding is that the biblical mustard seed was from a common weed -- not a cultivated plant but an invasive, wild weed that grew into huge, almost tree-like proportions.

Perhaps it was a bit like wild fennel in the Bay Area, which can be found in extensive stands in parks and stretches of urban wilderness that have been allowed to go to seed. The plants get so big and develop such deep roots that they are very difficult to remove. God's kindom here on earth is like this: expansive, powerful, unexpected, interconnected.

Whether or not our Central Asian ancestors ate the particular seeds of the wild mustard in this parable, the human diet has evolved to include a LOT of seeds. Not just seeds like mustard seeds and sesame seeds that because we call them seeds we know them to be seeds. But all of our grains -- the staff of life since the development of agriculture some 10,000 years ago -- are seeds. Wheat, rice, corn, barley, oats, millet, amaranth, quinoa, teff -- all are the seeds of the plants they come from. All can be planted in fertile soil to grow a new plant.

Subsistence farmers have always kept back a portion of their grain each year as seed. In times of hunger or famine it could be a brutal decision whether or not to eat the seeds one was saving for the future. (For a glimpse of this dynamic, read the wonderful book The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Yes, it's a children's book but I read it as an adult and loved it.)

Not only are all of our grains seeds, but our beans and legumes are as well. Black beans, kidney beans, pinto beans, white beans and the endless variety of other dried cooking beans of every color and stripe, as well as lentils, chick peas, pigeon peas, soy beans, and the dried peas that are split to make split peas -- all are seeds. Jack and the beanstalk is the story that immediately comes to mind when you think about the magical potential of beans -- and interesting that that beanstalk would have led Jack to the goose that laid the golden eggs... Seeds and eggs, eggs and seeds.

And of course then there are all the fruits that we eat, which carry the seeds. Often we eat the seeds right along with the fruit without even thinking about it: strawberries, bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, kiwis, zucchinis, summer squash, pomegranates, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. Sometimes we avoid the seeds or spit them out: apples, oranges, melons, apricots, peaches, peppers, avocados, pumpkins or winter squash. Sometimes we breed seedless varieties, as with grapes.

Then there are all the nuts: almonds, peanuts, walnuts, cashews, and coconuts are all seeds. Coffee is made from coffee beans -- a seed -- and chocolate is made from cacao beans -- a seed. Vanilla is from vanilla beans, each one of which is filled with a million tiny black seeds.

But this wasn't called the seed moon because it was a time of year to eat seeds. It was a time of year to plant seeds. The more I've learned about agriculture, the more surprised I've been by the complexities of seeds and the role they play in farming our food.

Before I started educating myself about "sustainable agriculture," I naively assumed that farmers harvested seeds from the plants they wanted to grow -- tomatoes, peppers, apples, cherries, etc -- and then planted them whenever they wanted to grow the same variety they harvested from. "Seed saving" seemed to me the most natural and simple of enterprises, and a right that should absolutely be protected. I was quite surprised to learn that it was not as straightforward as I thought.

An appleseed, planted, will indeed produce an apple tree, but the apples it bears will be completely different from the original apple the seed was taken from. As Michael Pollan writes in The Botany of Desire:

Apple trees are grown by grafting limbs from the desired apple variety onto a rootstock. The same with almonds, cherries, peaches, and a wide variety of fruits. The rootstock is bred for its ability to quickly and effectively develop strong roots. The grafting limb is chosen for its fruit. The apple is a fascinating example of the complex dance between human beings and our food plants -- one that sometimes moves towards increasing diversity, sometimes towards controlling that diversity.

Many other plants are grown from seeds, but depending on the variety the seeds may or may not, when planted, produce a plant that is the same as its parent. Most of the food we eat nowadays is from "hybrids." These are varieties that have been bred by seed companies to have certain traits. In the age of a globalized food system, these traits generally include: uniform ripening, suitability for mechanical harvesting, toughness of skin for shipping, consistency of color.

Notice that flavor, nutrition, or uniqueness are not on this list.

Most of these hybrid varieties are "mules." They are first generation hybrids whose seeds will not produce the same variety if planted. Even if they do reproduce the same variety, the plants will not produce well. This means that modern farmers are largely dependent on seed companies each year for their new seed.

If a hybrid is carefully grown out for many generations of plants, eventually an "open pollinated" variety can be developed that will reproduce true to form. The seeds from this variety can be saved and replanted year after year. If this variety is beloved by the people who grow it, and if the seeds are saved and handed down over human generations, this plant becomes an "heirloom." Heirloom varieties can have flavors, textures, colors, and shapes that are special and uniquely appealing. Working at a farmers market, I am blessed to be surrounded by a seemingly infinite variety of heirloom and unusual food plants: Indian red carrots, lacinato kale, purple potatoes, green zebra tomatoes, cara cara oranges: the list goes on and on. The beauty and specialness of these fruits and vegetables are one of the things, it seems to me, that make life worth living.

Some attention has been given over the past few years to the issue of "loss of biodiversity." Some of us are alarmed by the fact that a great number of varieties of food plants that are no longer being grown on any significant scale, while the few hybrids that have been selected for durability and uniformity have come to dominate the agricultural landscape. Kenny Ausabel, in his book Seeds of Change, writes:

The loss of variety is something all of us -- not just the so-called environmental community -- should be concerned about. Variety is the spice of life, we say... It is one of the things that makes life fascinating and wonderful and unexpected. I'll never forget a phrase that was on the wall of my high-school English class: "The world is so full of a great many things, I think we should all be as happy as kings." Perhaps it is true that a secret of happiness is in embracing the largeness, the expanse, the great unexpected diversity with which life expresses itself -- be it through culture: music, art, textile, cuisine, story -- or through nature: tree, bird, fish, fruit, flower, herb, beast. It is in the lushness of difference, of diversity, that joy and wonder reside.

In our culture, we are too often deprived of this richness, this subtlety, this expansiveness of color and form. This can be seen in many aspects of our life, but I especially notice it when it comes to food. Kenny Ausabel asserts: "The world today relies on just one hundred and fifty food plants, and only twenty of those produce 90% of our food. Nine are widely used, and account for three-quarters of the human diet. Of these, just three -- rice, corn, and wheat -- account for half. These are truly slim pickings, considering that there are thirty thousand to eighty thousand edible plants." I'm not sure how he arrived at these numbers or how accurate they are, but I think it is something to contemplate nonetheless. Walking down the aisles in a chain supermarket in a number of different cities throughout the country, one doesn't need statistics -- only eyes -- to see the homogeneity and predictability of our 'slim pickings.' Often, we don't even notice it -- until we find ourselves in a market in an exotic country, or a produce stand in an ethnic neighborhood, or at a particularly good farmers market, and we begin to remember all that we have been missing.

For many of our agrarian ancestors, the Seed Moon was a time to sow.

The frost was over, the spring rains were imminent, the ground could begin to be worked and planted. Springtime was a time of hope, of expectation, of potential, of possibility. Farmers and gardeners decided which seeds they wanted to plant again, which new ones they wanted to try, which varieties they wanted to lay aside for a season or two. They had taken stock of which seeds flourished, and which didn't. They were one year wiser about what worked in their garden or field.

Maybe this Seed Moon can be a time for us to plant as well, and for us to take stock.

How can we, within our culture, begin to plant the seeds of a life that is in love with nature? That is in love with the plants and the animals, the water and the wind, the sky and the mountains? How can we plant the seeds of a passionate love for diversity, a deep-rooted sense that that which is different is not only not frightening, but is deeply precious in its difference. How can we be a people that go out of our way to protect and defend even those things that we don't understand, can't comprehend, or know only from afar? How can we plant the seeds of a way of life where we no longer feel compelled to either steal, corrupt, or conquer that which we don't have, because we already feel full to overflowing with all that we do have? How do we awake to the dawn with a sense of wonder and hope and goodness, with the knowledge that what we will do that day is a gift to the world, even in its human imperfection?

I find these things to be hugely challenging within the society we have built up -- a society that has embraced consistency and predictability. Our cultural exports are the likes McDonald's and WalMart. We are decidedly not as happy as kings despite our mountains of many things.

How do we turn this around? How do we plant the seeds of a culture that is flowering, that is full of life, in all its messiness and uncertainty, its sorrow and its joy, its death and its rebirth? And how do we plant these seeds with the knowledge that while you often reap what you sow, sometimes you reap something that is quite different? Something with a new color or texture or flavor than what you were expecting? Something similar, but uniquely new? How do we grow to accept that life is constantly reinventing itself, and that we never do, truly, step into the same river twice? Can we be okay with all of this, deeply okay enough with it to embrace it and push forward? Can we be the sprout that emerges from dusty soil, and digging deeply with its tentative root, finds nutrients enough to feed itself, and grow into a great bush that offers birds shelter in its branches?

On the Seed Moon, at the cusp of spring, I find myself sending out this prayer, and this belief, and this hope: that we can.

Following are the dates and themes for three upcoming farm tours that I will be leading through my work. It would be great to have some of you join me!

April 25th: "Digging Deeper: Going Beyond Organic"

May 31st: "Daughters of Earth: Women in Farming"

June 13th: "Biodiversity on Small Farms"

Each tour leaves from the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero in San Francisco, CA. Tours cost only $25, include lunch, and will last all day.

For more information or to register, email info@cuesa.org or call 415-291-3276 x103

Jessica Prentice is the Director of Education Programs for CUESA, the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture.