Anyone in those areas interested in getting together and meeting one another?

Depending who’s interested, and where you are, I’ll try to arrange a date or dates and times.

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Kate is formally of Hills and Plains Seedsavers, which is still around and she posts there from time to time too.

I met Kate in person during the Oxford UK meeting in 2008, when she visited from Australia.  Most recent posts in her new blog have been about her new home in Tasmania, a large island off the south coast of mainland Australia.

I need to find a solution to my Blogroll.  I have too many people to link to, not enough space on the front of this blog, and I haven’t yet found a good way or the time to organize it yet.

In the meantime, if you would like me to link to you and let others know about you, please send me an email!  It’s not my intention to leave anyone out, and I think people who read this blog would like to know who you are.  I think others will tell you, when I post about blogs they tend to get a lot of visitors!  It’s a good way to get Google to recognize you too.

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Even though I’ve been in touch with Madeline off and on for a few years now, I learned quite a few things from this interview.  I think it’s really great she was able to not only take on the task of promoting heritage seeds, but turn it into a functioning independent seed company.

Independent European seed companies are becoming rare these days, especially those that grow all or a portion of their own seeds.  With the uncertain future ahead for Kokopelli Seeds, Brown Envelope Seeds looks set to become one of the most important seed companies for the home gardener in Europe.

Especially if you’re in Ireland, but also anywhere within travelling distance, consider coming to one of their open days and seed swaps.  Participants are welcome to camp on their farm.

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If you live in Canada and are interested in heritage seeds, be sure to visit:

Salt Spring Seeds: Sustainable Canadian seed company selling rare and unusual seeds. Online catalogue includes heirloom tomatoes, quinoa, amaranth, seed garlic and a new zero mile diet kit.

and

Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada: We are a charitable organization dedicated to the health and vitality of the earth through the preservation and promotion of heritage seeds.

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Matt of The Scientist Gardener is studying the unintended side-effects and safety of plant genetic engineering. Now here’s a field that’s going to be in the spotlight! Even if he and I may not choose to grow the same things in our gardens, I’m really looking forward to following his blog and staying in touch.

Raymondo of New from Old is someone I know from elsewhere on the Internet, and he has a new blog.  An amateur plant breeder in Australia, getting started on some really interesting looking projects.

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A number of posts have been made in recent weeks on different blogs about Monsanto buying nearly all commercial seed companies, everywhere.  There was a particularly good one on the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog.

It’s pretty clear in the aftermath of all this consolidation, the next frontier for Monsanto is the Internet.

This blog has received quite a number of requests for Monsanto seed companies to be added to my list of recommended sources of seeds in recent weeks, and comments challenging old posts I’ve made critical of Monsanto are also starting to come in.  Note the one here dated Jan 26th from ‘Rick’.

A discussion forum I frequently participate on also just had some visitors from Monsanto.  At least one of these visitors had actually been around for months, and out of the blue just started spewing nonsense about how good Monsanto’s seed companies were.  He did this together with someone else, so it sort of looked somehow like a legitimate conversation was taking place.

He started by giving a list of his favorite seed companies, including some many well known and trusted places like Baker Creek, Sandhill and Seed Savers Exchange, then went on to include some relatively unknown Monsanto seed companies and started promoting them.

Common Theme

Until now, all of these visits have had a common theme.  Monsanto is ‘normal’.  Each one has in some way tried to promote Monsanto as a normal seed company, and people who don’t want to grow seeds from Monsanto are somehow extreme.

These visits have included marketing slogans like ‘Most experienced gardeners trust Johnny’s.’  In particular, the theme that Johnny’s is somehow a trusted place to buy seeds seems to reoccur.  Any blog or other place on the Internet that recommends Johnny’s Seeds is suspect as advertising for Monsanto.

The Truth

The real truth is that us bloggers have been tremendously successful at proving commercial seeds, in particular from Monsanto, have very little legitimacy in a home garden.

When you grow commercial seeds, you can’t re-save them for sharing or replanting.  In general your chance of success is often lower, and you usually don’t end up with something worth taking a picture of and posting on your blog.  There are very few serious and successful blogs out there about gardens growing commercial seeds, because they just aren’t interesting.

Of course I don’t mean to suggest gardeners who grow a few commercial hybrid seeds are doing something wrong, but these plants don’t usually end up being the ones they post and rave about.

What to Do

I’m afraid more is likely to come!  Even if we have a wave of this nonsense and it passes, it’s reasonable to assume Monsanto will keep trying.

In the short run, keep an eye out for it on your blogs and discussion forums.  I don’t do Facebook or Twitter, but those of you who do or visit similar places on the Internet, keep an eye on it there too.

If you see someone who seems to be promoting commercial seed companies in the wrong place, be sure to say something.  Be sure to mention Monsanto, and don’t accept being told that growing seeds from Monsanto is somehow normal!  If they persist, ask them about who they are and what they are doing there.  Make sure you are very clear that you think what they are saying is wrong and just nonsense.

Be sure and talk about your experiences other places on the Internet, so the rest of us can be prepared to cope with the same thing.  By all means, please use this post as a place to leave comments on this.

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Kokopelli Seeds of France, who last year was fined more than €17.000 for selling ‘illegal’ seeds, is involved in a new legal conflict.  Baumaux, the same company that instigated the previous legal action against Kokopelli Seeds has now registered the ownership of the name Kokopelli and is selling a new variety of tomato with it.

Baumaux is not stopping there however, they are also demanding Kokopelli Seed cease and desist in their use of the name Kokopelli and all business activities associated with it.  They are also demanding a payment of €100.000 in compensation for use of the name to date.

The original French language story is here, and a Google translated version here.

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If you save your own seeds, make your own compost and recycle and reuse in your garden, many people don’t need to buy anything except some lime if they have acid soil and starting mix in order to start plants indoors.

A lot of people ask me about making your own seed starting mix, so they can avoid buying anything for their garden.  What’s particularly troubling for many is nearly all seed starting mixes are based on either peat, which is often harvested in unsustainable ways, or coir, which is a waste product of the less than ethical coconut industry, and gets transported long distances.  Starting mixes not based on peat or coir need to be sterilized, usually requiring fossil fuels or chemicals such as household bleach.

I don’t know if this is truly a recipe for everyone.  Perhaps not everyone raises bats for guano?  Anyway, Alan just posted a great recipe for starting mix, he makes nearly completely with waste or other products from his farm.  I think this is a great starting point for many people to think about making something similar with sustainable things you may have available locally.

Yakraut

And Owen on Radix4Roots posted this great looking recipe for fermented yacón root!  Something guaranteed to keep your digestive system in motion.

Island Blog

From a working 400 acre farm on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, this is a blog of someone I know from elsewhere on the Internet.  DirtSunRain

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This garden belongs to one of my fellow community garden gardeners.  As a person, he’s a really great guy.  As gardeners however, we are polar opposites.  He buys everything from a garden center, his gardening techniques are chemical intensive and does not see the value in organic gardening.  He also grows mostly flowers, which are very much a side activity for me.

He does however like to trade plants, and our gardening interests came together when I stopped by and offered him some of my Jerusalem Artichokes.  I thought he might eat them, but he doesn’t like healthy food like that.  Instead he decided to plant them, something that prompted an excited outburst of warnings from me that went completely unheeded.  He said he liked the flowers, and had been looking for some to plant for a long time now.

So he planted them and, like he always does, doused them in chemical fertilizer.  You can see the nearly 4 meter high plants, on the right side of his garden in front of the electricity pylon.

I went by in the fall while he was busy digging up the tubers in the ground, and warned him he better get as many out now as he could find, before spring came.  I reminded him I warned him not to plant them.  He pointed to another garden down the way, and said that gardener had asked for some, so next year they’ll be growing there too.

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Besides being a fellow blogger and heirloom gardener, Emma Cooper is a good friend of mine and very like minded.  I’m delighted she’s written this book, something I think makes a very important contribution to promoting environmentally friendly and sustainable living.

This book is a very personal account of things she’s done in her garden and home over the last several years, including building a geodesic dome shaped greenhouse, raising chickens as well as heirloom and alternative gardening.

As an alternative to a how-to book, Emma has written an A-Z account of the most important things she’s done.  Everything from Achocha to Zucchini.  She tells you what worked, and what didn’t.  If there are tips and tricks to be had, she spells these out.  She lets you know what she’s still doing, and things she doesn’t have time for any more.

If you’re experienced in alternative living and gardening, this book probably isn’t for you.  At the same time if you are just beginning or only a year or two into things, this is a great book to get ideas from.

While her experiences are based on a wet UK climate, much of what she writes about applies to everyone, regardless of where in the world you live.

To get an idea of the kind of person she is, have a look at her blog and listen to some of her podcasts.

Also important are Permanent Publications where you can purchase this book online if you live in the UK, and the associated Sustainability Centre.  Most people outside the UK can purchase this book online from Amazon.

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Here’s a video of Tom explaining basic tomato genetics, as well as giving ideas on how people could use some of his varieties and crosses to teach themselves and others about plant breeding. Tom offers some of his ideas for creating a publicly available collection of tomato genetic resources, as well as some research people could do if they wanted to help him collect more information.

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

Hairy Potatoes

In this video Tom explains the genetics behind hairy potatoes, and talks about King Hairy or was that King Harry…

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

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Again, many thinks to everyone who came and made this a big success.

Speakers

VP of Veg Plotting explained her air pot trial to us.  Like many things it sounded like the air pots were good in some circumstances, and not so good in others.  Have a look at her blog for a post with all the details.

Emma had a Q & A session for everything she has been working on in recent times, including her garden, chickens, book, blog, podcast, and lots more!

Soilman made a video of part of it.

Ben of Real Seeds demonstrated how it was impossible for most GM crops to yield higher than ordinary crops, because they are generally forced to produce some additional product like pesticide, which must in turn result in lower yields.  His picture shows how a normal plant (top) makes use of 1000 hours of sunshine, and the same GM plant has to split this resource.

Vicki of the Heritage Seed Library talked briefly about who and what they are and do.

Dr. Simon Platten talked for an hour about his research of UK allotments from an anthropological perspective.  He also brought in his bean collection that he collected from seed swaps across the UK demonstrating just how there is a real biodiversity available for those who are willing to look for it.

Finally, Tom gave really quite an astonishing account of his work in breeding tomatoes and potatoes.

Seed Swap

Somewhere in between all these presentations we found time for swapping seeds.  Among things on offer were a large collection from the Heritage Seed Library, elephant and other garlic, blight resistant potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, beans, onions, sorrel, and much more!

Lunch

We also took a short break for lunch, and enjoyed omelets, bread, cheese, home grown tomatoes and apples, potato salad, welsh cakes, home made cookies, gluten free apple cake, a home grown cucumber and more!

Sunday Workshop

Here are VP, Ben and myself at the Sunday workshop, examining a pile of potatoes.

The workshop was no less intense than Saturday, but we decided we had more or less finished by 2pm.  Lots more seeds and planting materials were available in the workshop, and I hope to make some of these materials in addition to some videos I took available via this blog in the course of the coming weeks and months.

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The weekend before our Oxford 2009 meeting Michael Soth has organized Thriving Sustainably, a sustainability event also in Oxford.  It sounds great to me, and I wish I could go.  If you live in the area, be sure to put it on your calender.

Michael and I briefly discussed the possibility of combining his event with our meeting, but the scheduling didn’t work out.   It’s clear we have a lot of the same goals in common.

Here’s the Thriving Sustainably leaflet with more details of the events planned, and here’s their website.

If anyone can help with donations as well as promoting the event, Michael would like to hear from you!

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There’s really quite an extensive Wikipedia page on him and his work.

Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, as well as numerous other awards.  He’s often credited for ‘saving over a billion people from starvation’.

His methods are also responsible for many people killed by cancers or otherwise sickened by agricultural chemicals, and for putting huge numbers of farmers deep in debt.

He’s responsible for an unsustainable system of high input agriculture, that by some accounts is the single largest contributor to global warming.  It’s undeniably the source of major environmental contamination in many places, and the reason many places in the world are facing a crisis from the loss of topsoil.

Many influetial people assert the gains seen in agricultural productivity would have happened anyway (see highlighted  box in the bottom of this link), without the need of all the energy and chemical inputs, and the current system of agriculture heavily dependent on intensively cultivated monocultures is the cause of many of the world’s most important crop pest and disease problems.

He’s certainly someone who will be remembered!

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