![]() I won’t go into exactly how many different packets I have on hand, because then I’d be the blusher. My biggest collection is of squash seeds. I guess I like to buy seeds more than plant them. I never even tried some of them in the garden. The list went to two pages, two columns per page. (Keep in mind that most seeds are good for about two years, usually five at most.) I decided I really needed an inventory of the seeds I have on hand. Much to my chagrin, I found remnants of old seed packets that go all the way back to 1983, the year we planted our first garden in California. It was in looking through my stash of old seeds for some Mayo Blushers that I discovered just what a seed hoarder I am. I’ve tried some of their offerings, and really liked their Mayo Blushers, a beautiful winter squash that turns from green to pink as it ripens. Native Seeds/SEARCH has an eclectic collection of seeds for sale for squash, corn, beans and chiles. By buying your heirloom garden seeds through them at you can support their important work.Īnother nonprofit group is Native Seeds/SEARCH ( Formerly headed by noted environmental author Gary Paul Nabhan, this organization seeks out seeds for plants that were used for food, fiber and dyes by Native Americans in the desert Southwest and Mexico. They now have 24,000 varieties from all over the world in storage and offer 500 of them to the public for sale. nonprofit founded in 1975, was a pioneer in the preservation of heirloom seeds. The concept of protecting heirloom varieties isn’t new. Home gardeners can find seeds for heirlooms in many major seed catalogs such as Burpee, Park, Territorial or Cook’s Garden, or find them online at specialty heirloom seed companies such as, , or. Heirloom veggies, especially tomatoes, are sometimes available at farmers markets. Vic and I have a number of heirlooms growing in our garden right now - Black Krim tomatoes, Red Kuri squash, Lollo Rossa lettuce, Chioggia beets, Danvers Half Long carrots, and many others. Heirlooms cushion humanity against disasters that could wipe out those huge monocultures of hybrids on industrial farms.įortunately, home gardeners can buy and save heirloom seeds from many vegetables. In other words, the offspring will be like the parents. Heirloom varieties are defined as cultivars that are open pollinated, meaning they are not hybrids or crosses of two inbred strains. ![]() The seeds from old heirloom varieties, many of which have been around for centuries, are key to maintaining diversity in crop plants. ![]() This ambitious project is the most comprehensive and diverse collection of food crop seeds being held anywhere in the world. The deposits came from 100 countries and consist of unique varieties of staple crops such as corn, rice, wheat, barley and potatoes, in addition to varieties of eggplant, lettuce, tomatoes and many more. It will protect seeds that form the main food source of the human race. The Doomsday Vault will hold 100 million of the world’s most precious seeds, a genetic heritage that has been accumulated during more than 10,000 years of agriculture. Funded in part by Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the seed vault opened in February. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, or the Doomsday Vault as it is popularly called, was built under the permafrost on a remote Arctic island off Norway. In light of the very real possibility of a disaster such as global climate change, nuclear war, or genetically modified organisms running amok and destroying part of today’s food crops, an international organization is banking seeds for the future. Each growing season, the modern farmer must buy more seeds from the seed company. The entire American field corn crop, for example, is made up of only a handful of varieties, all of them hybrids whose seeds cannot be saved because they won’t breed true. Modern agribusiness means enormous stands of the same variety that stretch as far as the eye can see. This type of selection over many millennia in different parts of the world is what gave us the huge genetic variety in seeds and allows us to produce so many different kinds of grains, fruits and vegetables. Many gardeners save seeds from their best vegetables to plant the next year. Seeds are one category in which I alone am guilty. Vic and I both are clutter hoarders in many areas of our lives, especially printed material such as books, magazines and EIRs.
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