How to replace the weeds in your landscape with food:
Breeding new varieties of annual veggies, greens & herbs that sow or re-seed themselves every year!
Three years before this post, I had three different varieties of Parsley seeds and scattered them in different places in my yard. Some places got more water than others, and some places got more sun than others (and vice versa). I neglected them. Most didn’t survive. But what DID survive, has now established itself into a hardy patch of acclimated parsley – a new strain or cultivar that I have, I guess, invented?
You can see there is still some of the other varieties growing, but you can also tell they hybridized by the new shape of the leaves (a mix between flat leaf and curly parsley that have bred together and passed on the genes most tolerant of my climate to this new breed of Parsley):
The steps I took (specifically for Ventura, CA – an arid subtropical / Mediterranean climate in USDA hardiness zone 10a):
1. Weeded the area and mulched heavily with compost / decaying organic matter.
2. Scattered seeds over the mulch and then sprinkled some finer, more thoroughly composted mulch over the seeds until they were covered to twice the depth of the diameter of the seed themselves (this is a rule of thumb for all seeds).
3. Keep moist / watered until germinated and growing.
4. Cut back on watering the parsley and watered my other plants nearby as normal. The parsley popped up, loved being shaded out by the guava bush to the south of it, and thrived.
5. Harvest as normal but let them go to flower / seed. This is when cross pollination and hybridization will occur – the best genes for your climate will automatically be selected by nature.
6. Collect the seeds or just leave the plant alone. I did a little of both.
7. Sit back and watch nature do it’s magic.
If you have any questions, please feel free to send us a message, comment or e-mail (contact form on website, Facebook, or ryan@relicgardens.com will be working in April).
Much love!
Ryan