“Seed Savers Exchange” saves heirloom seeds

Seed Savers Exchange was founded in 1975 by Diane and Kent Whealy, after her terminally-ill grandfather gave them the seeds of two garden plants, Grandpa Ott’s Morning Glory and German Pink Tomato, that his parents brought from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa in the 1870s.

Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. When people grow and save seeds, they join an ancient tradition as stewards, nurturing our diverse, fragile, genetic and cultural heritage.

Our organization is saving the world’s diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity. Few gardeners comprehend the true scope of their garden heritage or how much is in immediate danger of being lost forever.

Heritage Farm, SSE’s scenic 890-acre headquarters near Decorah, Iowa, is a living museum of historic varieties. Amish carpenters have constructed an inspirational meeting area in the barn’s cathedral-like loft, and also a complex of offices and seed storage facilities that feature a magnificent oak post-and-beam frame. This unique educational center is designed to maintain and display collections of endangered food crops. Each summer an estimated 5,000 visitors tour Heritage Farm’s organic Preservation Gardens, Historic Orchard, and Ancient White Park cattle.

Why should you grow heirlooms?

If you want variety, superior flavor, unusual colors and shapes and unique histories, heirloom gardening is a wonderful alternative to growing the F1 hybrids featured predominately by many large seed companies. Most home gardeners and growers don’t need tomatoes with skins tough enough to withstand cross-country shipment, or potatoes that will pass the McDonald’s uniformity test. Since the 1940s the hybrids have been the most marketed varieties to home gardeners. Choices grew increasingly smaller as the seed companies discarded those varieties that did not fit the factory-farm, monoculture mold.

Although the old time varieties were worthy of continuing, many were dropped by seed companies in favor of the hybrids and gradually home-growers couldn’t get the same tomatoes and peppers they remembered from childhood. An entire generation grew up believing that all tomatoes were red, round and identical in taste. However, heirloom gardening is putting an end to that myth! There are hundreds of different tomato varieties, and although some are red and round there are many others with incredibly complex flavors and a virtual rainbow of colors!

Many heirloom varieties can be recognized by their names as having folk origins. These gems were often grown by generations of families, ethnic enclaves and communities and are usually found in isolated and mountainous regions. Frequently they took the name of their ethnic origins, as in Zapotec Ribbed and Cherokee Purple tomatoes. Sometimes they were named after the family or person who bred them or made them available to other gardeners such as Djena Lee’s Golden Girl tomato and Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying Pepper. Some got their name from unusual physical traits, examples being Moon and Stars Watermelon and Rattlesnake Snap Bean. The Aconcagua Pepper was named after Mt. Aconcagua in Argentina, where it originated.

If you aren’t already convinced that you want to try growing heirlooms, another one of their desirable traits is that the ripening process is staggered, which means you get produce that ripens on an ongoing basis. Many hybrids were bred to ripen at the same time, which optimized mechanical harvesting. This trait is a disadvantage for the home gardener who might want to pick ripe tomatoes over a period of weeks, not days.

As a home gardener, you can make a difference simply by growing heirlooms and helping to keep the genetic reservoir well stocked for future generations. Imagine a seed catalogue with two or three tomato varieties – all red, round and similar in taste. What a dull world it would be without variety!

Source: www.seedsavers.org