Heirloom French Patisson
Scallop Squash
Photo courtesy of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co.
April 2005
Seed Savers
Seed saving has grown into a
full-fledged movement that appeals
to a wide variety of people interested in keeping diverse vegetables and plants alive
by Erica Myers-Russo
“I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
— Henry David Thoreau
Spring for a seed saver is an ecstatic season — time to watch the seeds you have coddled through their dormancy explode into life. It’s an addictive feeling, and one that hooked Chicago-area resident Dennis Sherwood when he was a little boy.
Sherwood, like more than a thousand others, found a home for his passion in the Seed Savers Exchange, an international network of germination junkies. Come spring, seed savers around the world search through the pages of their annual yearbook and prepare to request the seed of their dreams from a like-minded soul.
“I love meeting up with the same characters every year and swapping tales and lies,” Sherwood said. When it comes to his seeds, Sherwood is full of tales, and listening to him reveals the appeal of seed saving.
Take the “Whopper” variety of peanut, noted for its size, flavor and beautiful golden flowers with bright red stripes. After it was discontinued by a commercial seed company, Sherwood used his membership in the Seed Savers Exchange and found one person who had some. He contacted her, and she then sent him every last peanut she had. Her husband had passed away and she was no longer able to maintain the stock.
“Talk about pressure,” he said. Especially given northern Illinois’ heavy clay soils and suboptimal (for peanuts, anyway) climate. He has since passed some of his stock onto friend and professional seed saver Merlyn Niedens, who will try to re-establish the stock from his Southern Illinois garden.
No longer is seed saving just for immigrants and old-timers. It has grown into a full-fledged movement that appeals to a wide variety of people, including Dan Sutherland, who gardens with his wife, Mary, in Chicago’s North Park Gardens.
“The thing that I really like is seeing young agriculturalists take the ‘sustained planet’ theory seriously — they’re not going to take a vow of poverty and live in a VW van and eat bad food in the middle of the woods,” Sutherland said.
Getting Started
So how do you get started? Begin with the right seeds. Seeds, even the varieties suited for seed saving, are easy enough to find, thanks to the efforts of dedicated individuals like Glen and Linda Drowns of Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa or Chicago’s own Maryann “Mayo” Underwood, founder of Underwood Garden Seeds. Such companies focus on propagating open-pollinated, and oftentimes heirloom, varieties of fruits and vegetables as opposed to the more common hybrids popularized by larger seed companies.
As a seed saver, you care about whether a variety is open-pollinated (OP) or hybrid (F1) because hybrids are crosses of two varieties typically bred under laboratory conditions. As such, they are often either sterile or will not reproduce “true” from seeds.
Underwood, considered by many to be the maven of seed saving in the Chicago area, understands wholeheartedly the importance of convincing more individuals to try their hand at seed saving. Through such organizations as the Chicago Botanic Gardens, Garfield Park Conservatory, Morton Arboretum and private gardening clubs, Underwood teaches people how to preserve plants. She has produced a booklet on the subject, From Seed to Shining Seed, as well as instructional videos.
“I learned from my uncle, who was a member of the Mohawk tribe, and my aunt, who was of Italian descent,” she said. Spending each summer on their farm in Maine provided a welcome respite for Underwood from her urban childhood in New York City.
Also consider the germination requirements of your choice. Heat-loving plants, like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, generally need to be started indoors in order to have a “jump” on Chicago’s shorter growing season. If you’re equipped to start your own seeds, check out a book such as Nancy Bubel’s The New Seed Starter’s Handbook for specific instructions. But if not, you can begin with seeds that don’t require that extra attention.
“Start with beans,” Sherwood advises. And, while he’s at it, he’ll tell you a story about a special bean called “Golden Wax Soldier,” which he’s currently reviving from a sample of only five beans. “They’re nice big seeds [with a lot of stored energy to produce vigorous seedlings], easy for beginners, and you can plant them late since they like warm soil.”
Beans are also self-pollinated, which means that saving the seeds doesn’t require complex hand-pollination or isolation. Details are readily available for a variety of crops in two principle works — Susanne Ashworth’s Seed to Seed and Dominique Guillet’s Seeds of Kokopelli. Both provide clear technical information on the requirements of individual varieties of plants, telling you, for instance, how to hand-pollinate squash or whether hot and mild peppers will ‘‘contaminate’’ each other. Guillet includes color photos and other information specific to more than 400 varieties of heirlooms.
Finding Common Ground
Even in the heart of Chicago, it’s possible to find places to garden. Good sources for information about community garden plots include sustainability organizations such as GreenNet and Openlands, as well as your local extension agency or park department.
“Community gardening is the best place for people to learn. You find so many gardeners, so many different techniques,” Sutherland said. But sometimes finding the right person to talk to about obtaining a plot can be tricky. “Be prepared to make a lot of calls to sort through the bureaucracy,” he warned. “Even in Chicago, plots are out there. You really have to want one.”
To become a part of the largest network of seed savers in the world, join the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) or its sister organization, the Flower and Herb Exchange, based in Decorah, Iowa. Membership privileges include access to more than 13,000 varieties of plants, as well as numerous publications each year. The annual catalog sells many of the varieties the SSE maintains at its farm.
Also consider attending the annual convention. If you run into Sherwood, be sure to ask him about the 450 varieties of tomatoes he’s trailed. Or the incomparably sweet “Ira Hooker’s” Indian corn. Or the tragic story behind “Maybell’s Creek” pearl onion. Because, as Sherwood pointed out, at the conventions you can “always meet an absolute expert on any topic.”
Erica Myers-Russo writes and gardens in eastern Connecticut and has been a devoted seed saver for the past five years.
Get More Info:
www.monsanto.com
www.ucsusa.org
www.etcgroup.org
www.organicconsumers.org
![[Send]](http://consciouschoice.com/sendlink/send.gif){kind=small}
Recommend this page to a friend
Top Ten pages recommended to friends:
