Loo Urban Farm want to bring good Permaculture practices to the urban cities and build good Urban Permaculture practices in the cities. We want to make farming in the urban cities practical, commercialize-able, sustainable yet eco-friendly and as close to the nature as possible. We want to revolutionize and refine farming especially in the course of urban farming and future farming methodologies.
One of the common practices in Permaculture is to collect and use our own seeds. Why collecting seed become an important part of Permaculture, Urban Permaculture or Urban Farming? We enjoy many benefits for doing so. There are many farmers in the west who have keep their tomatoes seeds for many generations over decades.
Following are some of the benefits of keeping our seeds.
- Save seeds cost – By keeping our own seeds, we don’t have to keep on purchasing the seeds of the same crop we are growing in our farm or home.
- Avoid GMO – Next generation of genetically modified seeds will not grow well or will not germinate at all in their subsequent generation. By doing so, we can single our GMO seeds
- Acclimatized crops – The plant that we keep their seeds usually have grown well in our farm. Over the generations, the plant developed better resistance to pest and diseases in the farm to grow better than seeds from outside.
- Ensure Self-Sustainability – When we practice keeping our own seeds, we can be assure that our farm is sustainable and resilient disaster, climate change and other factors preventing access to seeds
For example, this red amaranth has not been growing well in our farm when we first bring in the seeds. The plant gets old and flower at very early stage. However, the seeds from the last batch dropped in the media and mixed in the media when we shift our farm. After 6 months, we setup the system in our new location, the seeds all germinated well and grow very well this time unexpectedly. We see how well the plant Acclimatized and improve their next generation and generation to come.
From the experience with the Amaranth, we are trying to keep this gorgeous Choy Sum seed and grow them in our system again and see how well the improve. Working with Permaculture is fun, enjoyable and interesting.
