Seed Network Updates
I’ve been very busy lately, and I’m behind on updates people asked me to make on the Seed Network page. Some people asked for updates an embarrassingly long time ago, and I think they are all now taken care of.
I’ve also gone through and just done a general clean up of old links and removed links to people who don’t seem to be publishing a current list of seeds.
If I’m missing anything, or if you would like to be added or removed from the list, please let me know. If I’ve deleted you in error, please accept my apologies and let me know so I can put you back.
If you’re looking for seeds to grow in 2010, please have a look at the current list!
How to Buy Heirloom/OP Seeds
This topic comes up every year around this time, and I almost always post something about it. If you’re new or relatively new to gardening, want to save your own seeds, breed your own varieties or simply want to know what you are growing in your garden is truly an heirloom or Open Pollinated (OP) variety, this is an important topic to be familiar with.
If you haven’t heard these terms before, heirloom generally refers to an older variety that’s been around at least since WWII. Some people also use the term for so-called modern heirlooms, which have been created since WWII but using traditional (sometimes called Burbank, after Luther Burbank) breeding methods. OP is simply a more generic term that includes both heirloom and modern heirloom varieties, and in particular if you grow a seed from an OP plant that has not cross pollinated with another plant, the resulting plant will be genetically identical or nearly identical to it’s parent.
Why Grow Heirloom/OP Varieties?
These are certainly the rage now. Everyone wants to grow older types of vegetables.
Most people choose to grow these types, in order to avoid commercially developed varieties or because they want to be able to save and regrow their own seeds.
Commercial varieties, while often aggressively marketed as being something else, are rarely developed for the benefit of home gardeners. Commercial varieties are developed instead for the convenience of farmers, often ripening all at the same time, having tough skins for easy transport, uniform appearance, and so on. These are not usually useful traits for ordinary people.
Commercial varieties are frequently marketed as having disease resistance, often with an impressive list of diseases. In reality these diseases are usually not a concern to home gardeners, rather only to large scale farmers. Specifically, if a variety is resistant to a disease you don’t have in your garden, this resistance is of no use to you. In order to understand if disease resistance is useful, you first have to understand the diseases present in your garden.
In fact you often encounter the opposite of disease resistance in commercial varieties. Since the vast majority of commercial varieties are developed by companies that also sell agricultural chemicals (Monsanto, Dow, etc), commercial varieties are often developed to be susceptible to diseases and to need chemicals. This is because the profit for these companies is simply higher if they can sell both seeds and chemicals.
Many influential people assert that the premise we are getting higher crop yields as a result of chemical intensive agriculture is complete fiction. There is in fact no reason why we could not achieve the same yields with organic methods. There is little reason for chemical intensive agriculture other than so the chemical companies can make a profit selling their chemicals.
Perhaps as important as anything else, most home gardeners have aspirations beyond growing the same vegetables on sale in supermarkets. Usually if you go to the trouble of growing something yourself, you want it to be a little more special than that.
How to Buy Heirloom/OP Varieties
There has been a massive consolidation of seed companies in the last few years, and most commercial garden seeds originate from one of 5 companies: Monsanto, Syngenta. DuPont. Mitsui, Aventis and Dow. There are very few independent seed companies around any more. Jeremy of the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog recently posted some diagrams illustrating this point. To be clear, these are both companies who sell seeds to farmers, and who sell to home gardeners. These diagrams are not complete, and there are other seed companies owned or partly owned by these large corporations.
The only way to ensure you are not buying seeds produced by these companies are to buy seeds from a retailer that does not sell any of them at all! To be clear, it’s not impossible to buy heirloom seeds from one of these large seed companies, but they do not clearly label them for what they are and do not market them honestly, so you can never be completely sure of what you’re buying.
Typically retailers selling seeds from these larger seed companies will label some or all of them commercial F1 hybrids, but leave the rest unlabelled and assume you will come to the conclusion on your own that these are OP/heirloom varieties. You cannot make this conclusion! If they are not clearly labelled as heirloom/OP, or better yet you are not buying them from a company that has a policy of only selling OP/heirloom varieties, you can not be sure of what you are buying!
The issue of if seeds are commercial F1 hybrids or OP/heirloom is too important. In recent years it’s really become a burning issue, and it’s too important for a seed company to just forget. If a seed company is not crystal clear about what they are selling you, you should buy your seeds from another company. If you want to ensure you are not buying seeds produced by the ‘big 5′ agricultural seed companies, you need to buy seeds from an independent retailer, and the best way to determine if it is independent is if they don’t sell any commercial F1 hybrid seeds at all.
I am aware there are a few, a very small number, of independent seed retailers that do sell commercial F1 hybrids. This is most often corn, as some people grow exclusively heirloom/OP varieties with the exception of corn. I would still suggest you not buy from these retailers, unless their posted policies make crystal clear which varieties are heirloom/OP. Even if you want to grow hybrid corn or other commercial hybrids, I think you are better off buying these from a commercial seed retailer, and the rest of your seeds from a retailer that does not sell any commercial F1s at all. This is really the only way to be completely certain.
I live outside of North America and can’t find an independent seed retailer!
There’s a good reason for that.
With the exception of the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, most places in the world have laws restricting or prohibiting the sale of heirloom/OP seeds. I live in Europe, and I can vouch for the fact we have very oppressive seed laws here.
These seed laws usually come in the form of lists of permitted varieties, and anything that’s not on these lists is illegal to sell.
If you live somewhere heirloom/OP seeds are illegal, your only option is to obtain them from a source that’s either local and informal (perhaps a nearby gardener who saves their own seeds or an illegal seed company), or import them. Many independent seed companies around the world are aware of the problem of seed laws, and many will cooperate in sending you plain and unmarked packages. Don’t be afraid to contact seed companies concerning this, and above all don’t be afraid to contact me for advice or help in obtaining seeds from abroad.
Are all hybrids bad?
No! Note that until now I have carefully referred to ‘commercial hybrids’, and there is a very important distinction here. Hybrids are an important aspect of plant breeding, and it’s certainly possible to make hybrids in your own garden, and even share them with others.
I won’t get into this here, but doing your own breeding or sharing breeding materials with others is certainly a very good thing to do, and there is nothing to be concerned about with these hybrids.
Seed companies favor F1 hybrids for an number of reasons, but one of the most important is they are genetically unstable. That is if you save seeds from an F1 hybrid plant, the resulting plant will not be the same as the parent. This makes it impossible for farmers or home gardeners to save and regrow their own seeds into identical plants, and it’s the intention to frustrate people who try. In a way, it’s like seed companies are selling you the results of an incomplete breeding project.
In fact, there’s no reason why anyone who’s interested in experimenting shouldn’t try saving seeds from a commercial hybrid.
Okay, so where do I buy OP/heirloom seeds?
Like I said, look for a seed company with a clearly stated policy of not selling anything except OP/heirloom seeds. This is the surest way.
One of the best ways of getting OP/heirloom seeds is for free. A number of forums exist on the Internet which offer these seeds for trade or free. Caveat emptor! It’s best to correspond with the person offering them a little bit, in order to learn something about them and where they came from.
On this blog, I host a Seed Network. At a minimum, I ensure the people offering seeds here understand the principles laid out in this post, and I do take a quick look at the seeds offered to try to verify if they are true OP seeds, but of course I can’t guarantee anything. If you would like to offer seeds here, please get in touch. Please note, as of the time of writing this post, the seed network hasn’t been updated for 2010. I’ll get to that as soon as I have time.
On my links page, I list quite a number of possible sources of OP seeds, under the heading Seed Sources and Trading Forums.
Finally, there are a few specific seed companies I’ve had contact with, which I would recommend, and most will happily ship abroad:
Real Seeds (UK)
Brown Envelope Seeds (Ireland)
Baker Creek Seeds (US)
Sustainable Seed Co. (US)
Kokopelli Seeds (France)
Salt Spring Seeds (Canada)
Bingenheimer Saatgut (Germany)
Food Independence for Independence Day
Roger of KGI recently made a post on a campaign he started to encourage people to celebrate the upcoming Independence day in the US by featuring local foods. As well as promoting the idea of eating locally, he also addresses the idea of food independence, or food sovereignty as it’s known outside of the US. It’s a really important concept, and it’s important for everyone living everywhere on the planet.
It’s the idea you are able to grow your own food without inputs or outputs of any kind, and without depending on anyone else for anything. Without needing to get into your SUV and drive to Walmart to buy lumber, large bales of peat, mulch, sacks of fertilizers and so on. Without needing to buy seeds from a single source because you grow hybrid varieties produced by a single company. Without needing to use tap water, because you collect rainwater from your roof. Without needing to use landfill space, because you recycle all of your own garden waste. Without using power tools that run on fossil fuels, pollute the air and generate greenhouse gasses. Without needing money to pay for it all.
Of course few people manage to achieve all of these things simultaneously, but by thinking about these things, doing the best you can given your personal circumstances and continuing to work on and improve the way you garden, you are taking an important first step.
A useful way to think about this is the way you spend money on your garden. Growing fruits and vegetables should be almost free. You will need some hand tools, if your ground is acidic some lime and maybe some potting soil from time to time, but everything else comes down to recycling things from your own garden and growing methods. In the short term other things may be needed, for example you may decide to purchase a greenhouse and a shed. You may have some specific problems in your garden that need to be addressed, one of the most common is soil lacking something that can be identified with a soil test or other methods. You may have drainage problems that need to be fixed, and so on. There aren’t many problems that require treatments or inputs beyond a year or two, and you should be thinking about garden sovereignty after that time.
When you buy food from the supermarket, you immediately find yourself in the middle of a complex tangle of commercial interests and politics. It begins because few people know how to grow their own food today, and in part it’s because food companies have invested tremendous effort into making modern foods convenient and cheap. It’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to break. Growing your own food is something that takes time to learn, and this lack of knowledge is really a serious problem.
Nearly all varieties of fruits and vegetables are patented and produced by one of five seed and chemical companies worldwide. Since these same companies also sell chemicals, and they make more money if they sell chemicals with their seeds, so they breed them specifically to need these chemicals. We are all familiar with GM Round Up ready varieties, and this is one very obvious example as Monsanto sells both Round Up and the Round Up ready varieties of seed. There are many, many much more insidious examples of this for example cucumbers susceptible to mildew diseases or insect pests that require chemicals.
When farmers buy commercial seeds to plant, they get a list of required chemicals and a schedule for applying them. Agriculture by numbers, if you like. If farmers don’t do this the seed companies won’t support them. It’s like doing something that invalidates a consumer warranty, even if it has nothing to do with some unrelated problem that needs to be fixed. Under these circumstances, you can be assured farmers will apply all the required chemicals even if they know they aren’t needed.
If you buy certified organic food, you are still buying these commercial varieties. In this case, you pay for the patents on the varieties and the work that went into them being designed to need chemicals, the extra trouble the farmer has to go through to grow them without chemicals, finally the very cumbersome associated paperwork and regulations intended to put small farmers and food producers at a disadvantage. It’s a silly way to buy your food.
If you buy meat, this tangle gets even more intense, because first the grains are grown like I described above, then the animals are raised following similar lines of logic.
This is what we call the Green Revolution.
It came about because during the depression of the 30s and the war years that followed, there were food shortages and they need to ensure food companies who invested in improved plant varieties and production methods could be assured of profits. They invested in plant varieties, chemicals and methods that made them as much money as possible and there were no other reasons for what they did. There’s no reason to believe, if they hadn’t instead invested in organic agriculture without chemical and energy inputs, productions yields would be any lower today than they are now.
When politicians talk about providing ‘high quality’ seeds to the developing world to fight hunger, they are lying. It’s as simple as that. Instead what they are talking about is forcing a system of debt, dependence and environmental damage on hungry people who are in desperate need of developing their own food sovereignty.
If you go to a garden center and buy a normal commercial packet of seeds, you immediately put yourself in the middle of this tangle of required chemicals and politics. It’s not that it’s impossible to grow nice things from commercial seed packets, but you’re starting off at a disadvantage.
If you think along the lines of food sovereignty, and avoid commercial seeds, you’re assured chemicals will not be needed to grow your plants. Otherwise the situation is less clear.
In order to be sure to avoid the usual commercial tangle, if you want to purchase non-commercial seeds, you should purchase them from a company that specialized in them. The best thing would be if you can find a local company, that hopefully produces seeds most suitable for your local climate. In any case, be sure to look specifically for a company that specializes in non-commercial seeds. The links page on this blog lists a number of these companies.
If you grow non-commercial seeds, another advantage is being able to save and replant seeds from these plants. Saving seeds is also a skill that’s been lost with our current generation and takes some time to learn. Many people start reading about how complicated it is and are quickly discouraged. It really doesn’t have to be difficult. Roger’s post that I linked to at the top, discusses growing garlic, something that doesn’t take any special skills to save and replant. Beans, peas and lettuce are nearly as easy. Just grow the plants and save the seeds — that’s it. Other plants can be more complicated but a little research is all that’s needed to learn how to do it. You must however start with non-commercial seeds, or the plants you get after saving your seeds will not be the same as the original parent plants.
Once you make the decision to start saving your seeds, you have access to the wonderful world of seed exchanges. These are fellow gardeners who also save their own seeds, and often have very special varieties of plants on offer. While some of these gardeners are happy to provide their seeds to anyone and everyone, most really expect you to have the intention of saving and regrowing them, so it’s best to at least have the intention of doing this before getting involved in trading this way. If you’re interested in offering or receiving non-commercial seeds, have a look at the Bloggers Seed Netork page.
Aim for food sovereignty. Don’t add anything unnecessarily to your garden. Get away from the mindset of being a farmer, and needing a box of this and a bottle of that. Don’t give your money to the wrong companies. Grow the right varieties. Take care of our planet and your health, at the same time you grow fresh fruits and vegetables in your own garden.
Planting Out in the Heirloom Garden
This is a cross posting, also available at La Vida Locavore. For my regular readers, please bear with the somewhat introductory nature. Those of you who do regularly read this blog may want to check out some of the other posts on La Vida Locavore.
For me heirloom gardening is all about getting away from the mentality of growing things from a purchased packet of seeds. If you do grow plants from purchased seeds, you are always better off saving your own seeds if possible because with every generation they adapt to your garden, a process you can help along by being a little choosy with the plants you save seeds from.
Even better than starting with purchased seeds are those you can’t buy, and can only get for free or perhaps a small payment to cover shipping and handling costs. These might be plants growing wild somewhere, where someone has gone out and collected some seeds for you. Perhaps these are varieties someone has created in their own garden with amateur plant breeding techniques. You might spend the time to make contacts at academic institutions or seed banks, and find things in these collections or perhaps know someone who has already done this and can get some saved seeds from them. Even easier than saving seeds every year is to establish perennial plants in your garden, those that come back providing tasty things to eat each year.
If you’re interested in growing these sorts of plants, have a look at the blogger seed network with a number of people who will send plants and seeds most places in the world at little or no cost. The network currently has 24 people in 11 countries. Many people think these kinds of things cannot be sent into the US because of customs rules, but that isn’t always the case. Keep reading to see pictures and descriptions of a few of the plants I’m growing this year.
This is a Pinus Pinea tree, one of the most popular for growing pine nuts. Mary who lives in Greece sent me some seeds she collected from trees growing on her property. Any possible harvest from this is farther away than anything else I’m growing at the moment, and also one of my most uncertain. The climate in my garden is probably too wet for this tree that likes a dry climate, however they do grow in other parts of the Netherlands. I have read estimates ranging from 8-30 years for the first harvest. In addition, these trees are self fertile, which means I have to have two of them to cross pollinate each other! These will likely get quite large, so it’s not certain I will continue to have space for them. One of the things I hope to get from this tree is a shady place to sit, something I’m lacking in the garden at the moment and perhaps can expect to get sooner than a harvest of pine nuts. These trees are sometimes called umbrella pines, and grow up and out.
These are two different yacón plants, both from my Belgian friend Frank. This is a really interesting plant, one of the so called Lost Crops of the Incas. I did a post with pictures of the tubers here. This has the potential to become a very important crop in the future. It’s more productive than potatoes in the same space, with each plant yielding about 10Kg in less than a square meter. It’s well suited as a biofuel crop, because it has a high sugar content. It also has a nice taste, very sweet, almost like a melon. It’s not something to eat every day I think, but it’s nice to eat as a treat.
Especially if you live in the US, this is a good example of a plant not to purchase from a seed company. It’s very hard to find for sale in the US, and for example Seeds of Change was selling it this year for $20 per plant plus mandatory express shipping costs. On the other hand I sent a number of growing tubers to people in the US for free, as my cost was only that of a couple of postage stamps. A couple of people reported they received them successfully and are growing them now. I’ll almost certainly have more to send out in February, if you’re interested in giving it a try yourself.
This plant is called Good King Henry (it goes by other names as well), and was sent to me by Søren in Denmark. It’s one of the limited number of edible plants that will tolerate some shade, and has leaves that can be eaten like spinach and shoots that can be eaten a bit like asparagus in the spring. This by the way is my third try with seeds from Søren. The first time, it got lost in the weeds. The second time I grew it too close to Jerusalem Artichokes, which grew over the top of them. If you ever get seeds or other plant materials from me, don’t be afraid to ask for more the following year if it doesn’t go well! Unexpected things can always happen.
This is edible chrysanthium given to me by Kate of Australia, during her trip through Europe, Singapore and the US last year. I know you can eat the greens, and perhaps this is also the kind of plant you can harvest capers from? I’m not sure about that.
Cape Spitz cabbage. This was sent to me by Mike in South Africa, and is an oxheart shaped cabbage. This type of cabbage is very popular both in Holland as well as it’s former colonies, so I have a personal interest in seeing if there are major differences between what is grown locally and what is grown in SA. As well as the straw I use as mulch, this plant is also protected with a net.
I’m growing a number of ground cherries this year. Inspired in part because my friend Frank in Belgium who I mentioned above collected a number of varieties and gave me some of the seeds, but also a number of other people have given me varieties as well. Laura in France and Ottawa Gardener in Canada have both given me varieties, as well as some I purchased from well known plant breeder Alan Kapuler’s seed company.
What are commonly referred to as ground cherries are actually a large number of different species of plants, with a reputation as being some of the best tasting solances (tomato, pepper, potato, eggplant and related plants).
I’ve planted a variety of multi-colored sweet corn called Painted Hills, purchased from Alan Kapuler’s seed company. Seeds of change has a good picture of it in their catalog.
In my greenhouse I’m growing a fruit called Kiwano, from seeds sent to me by Riet who lives in Holland.
These are just a few plants I have growing now, and there’s lots to come! Please watch my blog to hear more, and if you’re interested in growing these kinds of plants, don’t be afraid to contact me or others in the Seed Network linked to at the beginning of this post.
Understand that I get a lot of emails, and this year with all the attention being paid to the president’s garden is going to be really busy for me. At the same time I love to hear from people of all skill levels with this kind of thing, and I always have 5 minutes to answer a question or point you to a source of a particular plant. If you see a plant on my blog, I probably have seeds I can send or can point you to another source. You can find contact information on the front page of my blog.
Goji Berries and Strawberries
It’s planting season in the garden again. The last frost day here is normally 1 May, but we are in the middle of a very hot and dry spell and the idea of frost seems a distant one, so I am getting started a little early. According to the weather people here this is the hottest April for the last 110 years, except for 2007 which was hotter. The month isn’t over yet, so who knows, we may yet break the 2007 record.
I’m not the only garden blogger growing goji-/wolfberries this year! I thought I was being clever by buying some goji berries at the local market and planting the seeds, but I see quite a number of people had the same idea.
Emma of Fluffius Muppetus, who has had some goji plants for a year now, suggested planting them with an understory of strawberries. As luck had it I was planning to plant some strawberries this year anyway!
I’ve decided to commit one of my raised beds to the project. Emma also suggested planting them in an out of the way spot, because the plants are a bit thorny and sharp, so I’ve allocated my most out of the way bed to the task.
For years now I’ve been growing white Alpine strawberries, and really enjoying them. Imagine how happy I was to run across a plant breeder working with them! Alan recently sent me some seeds of his Jeffersonian Alpine Strawberry mix. As I understand it, it’s a mix of yellow and white Alpine strawberry varieties (both genetic and simple seed mix), with some selection already done for large berries. The name comes about because Thomas Jefferson who also grew and enjoyed Alpine strawberries apparently concluded they would never be profitable to grow and sell. Alan sells them on his farm, and is looking to develop them commercially.
I’m really looking forward to doing some selection on these in my own garden!
