When I was in Ft. Lauderdale, I went to a church picnic at John U. Lloyd state park and beachcombed with my kids for a while.

We found some pretty cool plants – including some edibles – right there along the shore line. Hog plums, sea grapes, Bidens alba, some shoreline beans… great stuff.

But something that really caught my imagination (yes, Chrissy – I know I’m a freak!) were the various “sea beans” or “drift seeds” we found among the seaweed on the shore.

The beach beans in the pods were found by one of my sons further up the beach (good find!), but the rest of these Florida drift seeds we found near the surf.

The two seeds on the top left are tropical almonds, then there’s a “hamburger bean,” then two “sea coconuts,” one in its husk and the other without it.

I find it amazing that these seeds were designed to be dispersed by the ocean… what a testimony to God’s creativity.

Of course, me being the plant nerd that I am, I couldn’t be satisfied by just picking up a few seeds and putting them on a shelf as curious. Nope – I’m now trying to germinate these suckers.

Awwwwww yeah.

I’ll give you an update and some pics when I get a chance. The beach beans are already coming up and the hamburger bean has sprouted a root.

Survival Gardener REPRESENTIN’!!!

UPDATE: Here’s the post on germinating the hamburger bean in this photo. Also, one of the tropical almond seeds sprouted and is now a huge fruiting tree in The Great South Florida Food Forest Project. Who would’ve thought a simple trip to the beach would bring such gardening inspiration and bounty?