Tag: heirloom seeds

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Save Seeds from your Grandparents

Last week, I sowed tomato and pepper seeds in flats of potting soil, and they are busy germinating inside my house under grow lights.  I haven’t seen any green leaves sprout above the soil’s surface yet, but I expect to see some soon.

My mother and my aunt have been cleaning out my grandmother’s house, and they rescued some seeds from a dark closet where they have been sitting for nearly 20 years.  I sowed some of them thickly along with my new seeds.  I know, I know, there’s no way they’ll germinate because they are so old, but I could not resist trying to germinate seeds of “Frank Carruth’s tomatoes,” “yellow tomatoes,” and “Moon and Stars Watermelon.” 

Thrifty children of the Depression, my grandparents used the payment envelopes that came with their power bill to store the seed.  According to my aunt, the Frank Carruth, for whom my grandparents named the tomatoes, owned a furniture store in the South Carolina town, Landrum, where they lived.  People knew him for his “green thumb,” and he accepted payments for the power company, where my grandmother paid her bill. 

Although I don’t know exactly how my grandmother got the original seeds, I like to imagine him handing over some seeds, a plant, or a few tomatoes, with her change from paying the power bill, and admonishing my grandmother to save some seed for the next year’s garden.  According to my uncle, the seeds are a German Pink tomato, and Mr. Carruth might have brought the seeds to the US from Germany after he finished his military service in World War II. 

The variety still exists in heirloom seed catalogs and my uncle thinks he has some seeds in his freezer he’ll give me.  Seed companies like Seed Savers Exchange, http://seedsavers.org/, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, www.rareseeds.com, were started with seeds people found and wanted to preserve.  Heirloom seeds have a story, like that of the Frank Carruth tomatoes; no scientist made them in a laboratory. My favorite seed company, out of Anderson, Heavenly Seed, www.heavenlyseed.net, carries many heirloom, open-pollinated seed varieties as well as hybrid seed that do well in South Carolina.

In hopes of preserving seeds from the very plants my grandparents grew, I’ll plant these seed and see what happens.  As I open the envelopes carefully labeled with my grandparents’ handwriting, I remember working with them in the garden, imagine what might have been happening when they removed those seeds from that tomato to save.  Unfortunately, I was busy with high school and away at college during most of the gardening years from which those particular seed were saved, and even when I visited, I was not very interested in gardening.   As I save seed from the plants in my garden, I hope I can build a library of seed that will outlive me.

If you haven’t ordered seeds or started seeds for the spring and summer, it’s not too late.   Begin sowing the seeds of peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and warm season herbs inside, even though you won’t be able to set them out into the garden for another six weeks or so.  Wait to sow seeds of beans, corn, squash, and other summer vegetables directly outside in the garden in early-to-mid April.   We have plenty of time, so look at some seed catalogs or websites, and start a garden with a story yourself

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It’s Time to Save Seeds for Next Year

If your garden managed to survive the hot, dry, summer, it is time to save seeds for next year.  Saving seeds is an economical way to garden from year to year, and it is the best way to preserve varieties that do well in your garden.

Seeds from open-pollinated plants are the only ones you can save and expect that they will produce the same plant again next year.  Hybrid plants produce seeds that are sterile, or else do not reproduce plants identical to the parent plants because the original seeds were grown in forced circumstances.  Open-pollinated plants produce fertile seeds that grow plants like the parents.  Hybrid seeds usually have “F1” on the package; open pollinated ones may have “OP.”  Plants labeled “heirloom” are not necessarily open-pollinated, and an “organic” designation has to do with the growing conditions of the plant that produce the seed, not whether or not the seed is open-pollinated or hybrid.  If you know the particular variety of plant, but don’t know if it’s hybrid or not, try looking it up online or in seed catalogs. 

To find flower seeds, allow blossoms to die and examine them.  Various coverings contain the seeds depending on their method of dispersal.  Some, like zinnias and daisies, are like flattish triangles and form in clusters in the cone in the middle of the flower.  Others, like spider flower and annual salvias, are round or oval and form in pods.  Butterfly weed, like the dandelion, attaches filmy white material to its seeds so that the wind carries them away, and poppies form seeds in little containers out of which the seeds pour like pepper from a peppershaker. 

Seeds from tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables are generally inside the vegetable.  Squeeze out the seeds and let them dry on a paper towel, then scrape them off and save them in a dry container.  I wait for beans and okra to dry on the plant, and I open the pod and shake the seeds out into a container.  Choose a container in which to remove the seeds from the pod.  Shake the seeds loose from the pod while it is inside the container, and discard the pod.  Some seeds, such as zinnia seeds, are difficult to separate from the dead flower; I pull off the dead petals, break apart the flower head, and save the whole thing for planting next year. 

 Allow the seeds to dry for a few days in a well-ventilated area.  To store them, put them in an old medicine bottle or zip-top bag, and keep them in a dry, cool, place until it’s time to plant them next year.  I usually save open-pollinated vegetable and herb seed, zinnia, annual salvia, cleome, poppy, larkspur, sweet William, foxglove, and columbine seed.

If you save seeds from perennials, you can sow the seeds in potting mix in a place where you can take care of the seedling all winter, preferably outdoors if you live in a suitable climate like I do, and get an extra 6 months of growth ahead.  Just protect the seedling from temperatures in the teens and below by putting it in an unheated garage or similar space, or sow the seeds in a cold frame. 

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Seed Savers Exchange



Gardens in front of the barn at Seed Savers Exchange



 Decorah, Iowa, is a beautiful town near the Minnesota border. Norwegians apparently settled the town, and their influence remains in the food and culture. After driving more than 100 miles north of Iowa City, where my family and I visited my sister, we arrived at Seed Savers Exchange, a seed purveyor.   Visit them at http://www.seedsavers.org/.  They specialize in selling heirloom seeds, and their goal is to help prevent the extinction of the seeds our great-grandparents grew. People used to save seeds of plants that did well in their gardens and pass them along to other people, and they developed varieties especially adapted to their gardens. With the advent of hybrid seed and the decline of gardening, many of these varieties have been lost. Seed Savers, along with other similar organizations, hopes to prevent further demise by growing and selling the seed.
Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization founded by Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Ott in 1975 with some seed her grandfather gave her that he brought from Bavaria to Iowa in the 1870s. Heritage Farm, where Seed Savers Exchange is headquartered, spreads for 890 acres and includes antique apples, fields of heirloom vegetables, and endangered cattle. The farmers at the Heritage Farm, as well as gardeners across the country, work together to preserve heirloom seeds by growing, sharing, and selling the seeds. Seed Savers Exchange donates seed to national and international seed vaults and preservation programs.  
Coneflowers
Unfortunately for me, we visited on a Sunday, when many of the buildings were closed, and we went there at the end of a very long day of driving and touring other places. Although my visit was brief, it was long enough to determine that the place is just as beautiful as the seed catalog and the website, http://www.seedsavers.org/,  depict it.
The soil is the rich, dark land of the Midwestern cornfields. I am perpetually envious of the richness of the soil and the abandon with which plants grow. My sister reminds me, though, that the weather is only pleasant less than half the year, and while I am at home, contentedly enjoying a 70-degree day in January and picking lettuce, the soil in which she might hope to grow lettuce is frozen solid and covered with snow.
But on that July day, the coneflowers grew in enormous clumps, as did the hollyhocks. Insects ravaged neither, and the colors in the petals were vibrant instead of faded by day after day of temperatures at or near 100, as my flowers are. Plants look like they do in pictures in magazines, instead of hot and tired.



Trial gardens at Seed Savers Exchange



In the vegetable garden, beans and tomatoes shared space with lettuce, potatoes, carrots, and beets. In Iowa, gardeners have only one season in which to grow their crop, and nature seems to cooperate to provide abundance in the short time. With the rich soil and extra hour of daylight gardens receive there, usually without the temperatures high enough to stop plant growth and fruit setting that we have regularly, plants grow and produce enough in the short season to sustain the gardener for the winter.
As I always do when I visit another garden, I left inspired to work harder in my garden. I cannot do anything about the heat, but I can continue to work on the soil so that my plants have a thicker layer of black loam in which to grow every year. I told my husband and sister I could just summer in Iowa, with a nice garden, and move back to SC when the snow falls. Then again, I would miss home and the sounds of our birds and insects. I guess I will stay where I am, and cope with my gardening challenges. At least I can garden nearly every day of the year here.
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To buy products from Seed Savers Exchange or to request a catalog, visit www.seedsavers.org or call (563) 382-5990.  If you have some seed you have passed down in your family and want to make sure it is preserved, or if you want to share it with others, they might be able to help.  In addition, if there is some variety of plant you remember from your grandmother’s garden but you cannot seem to find anymore, check their catalog for it.
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Are You Confused about the Different Types of Seeds?

For the novice gardener searching for seeds in a catalog, the array of terms like hybrid, non-GMO, open-pollinated, and heirloom might make the task of deciding among all the tempting descriptions of plants more difficult. Depending on which catalog you read, some types of seeds are almost vilified, while others are ignored.

 

Almost all seeds on the market for gardeners are either hybrid or open-pollinated.  Scientists genetically engineer GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds by inserting genes from plants, bacteria, or other living species into a plant’s DNA in ways that cannot happen in nature.   For example, Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT, is a bacteria organic gardeners apply to plants to kill caterpillars.  Scientists figured out how to insert the BT gene into corn genes, and the resulting seed kills the corn earworms when they begin feeding on the ear of corn.  The corn you eat has the BT gene inside it. 

 

Proponents say this reduces the amount of pesticides introduced into the environment, while skeptics don’t like messing around too much with the natural order of things.  You will know it if you buy GMO seed: you will probably have to sign some document saying you won’t sell or even save the seed, and you may have to put up a sign near the field identifying the crop.  There is no danger of the home-gardener accidentally buying some GMO seed at the local store and planting it; it’s usually reserved for farmers.

Open-pollinated seeds form when the pollen of one plant is transferred to another plant, usually with the help of wind or insect pollinators.  The resulting offspring are similar to the parent plants because plants that are similar genetically cross with each other.  Gardeners save seed from open-pollinated plants and expect to get a similar plant from the seed next year.  All seeds were originally open-pollinated, and farmers and gardeners were able to save seed from plants that did well in their gardens for free.  Once a crop sets seed, they could grow gardens indefinitely, as long as they saved seed from the crop each year, without ever buying any more seed. 

Heirloom seeds are usually open-pollinated, and they have some historic or cultural value.  They are seeds your great-grandparents might have grown.  The definition of heirloom seed varies from catalog to catalog, but some examples are Brandywine tomatoes, Kentucky Wonder beans, and Red Russian kale. 

Hybrids pollinate either by wind or with the help of a plant breeder, but the seed grower makes sure pollination occurs in controlled circumstances among varieties of plants that are distantly related.  The seed, the offspring of two specific parents, is usually the first generation of the breeding between the two plants that possess desired characteristics.  For example, a breeder may cross a tomato resistant to tobacco mosaic virus with a tomato resistant to cracking to get a tomato resistant to both cracking and tobacco mosaic virus.  The seed of a hybrid tomato, however, contains the genetic traits combined in an uncontrolled manner and the traits of the offspring are unpredictable.  Hybrids often do not even produce seed, or they may produce sterile seed that will not germinate.  If you plant hybrid crops, you will have to buy new seed every year.  Breeders label seed “F1” hybrid, which denotes the seed as the first offspring of the parent plants.

Each of the types of seed has its own advantages.  Hybrids often offer better disease-resistance than open-pollinated varieties, but open-pollinated varieties often taste better and, if you save the seed, you don’t have to buy the seed again. 

Harvesting a tomato crop at all has been an ongoing challenge for me because the disease has been killing my plants.  Last year, I planted many different types of seeds and the hybrid tomatoes resisted disease the best.  A few of the open-pollinated seeds did fairly well too, and I’ll grow them again along with some new types.  Last year I actually had a tomato harvest, and, although purists would eschew any seeds not open-pollinated, I am practical: it’s better to grow something in my own garden instead of buying it elsewhere, even if it’s from hybrid seed.  Planting many different types of seed is the best way to ensure a harvest: if one variety dies, something else may survive.