In connection with Tom Wagner’s visit last year, he gave me a collection of true potato seeds from his breeding projects.  In the seed tray above you see the seeds germinating, with the numbers corresponding with his various breeding lines.  He explained the pedigree of many of his lines in this video.

If you are in Europe and would like to join in on the trials at the last minute, I have a few seeds left over.  There’s still plenty of diversity in these seeds, but you need to understand to some extent you would be getting the leftovers.  If you are interested, send me an email.  As part of participating you would be expected to stay in touch and let us know how things go, good or bad.  Beyond that, there are no strings and it’s a great opportunity to experience potato breeding first hand.  You’ll need probably 20 m2 or so of garden space available.

If you live outside of Europe, you should get in touch with Tom directly.  His discussion forum is probably the best way to do this.

For me this is a very important project in many ways.  Included in many of these lines are late blight resistance, as well as many other exciting tastes and traits that come with the biodiversity selected by a professional public domain plant breeder.  Late blight and the chemicals used to combat it are threatening the environment in Europe and the consumers who eat the potatoes.  It’s the excuse seed companies are using to justify the creation of a GM potato variety that’s resistant to late blight.  This past year Europe commited itself to phasing out the dangerous chemicals used in this way, so within a decade all that’s likely to be grown for human consumption will be blight resistant varieties.  Thanks in a large part to Tom, we won’t be forced to accept GM potatoes without any other alternatives being available.

The sort of plant breeding Tom is doing, public domain plant breeding, is very different from what commercial plant breeders do.  Tom has a single priority; to develop lines of potatoes that people want to eat and grow in their gardens or farms.  While Tom would certainly like to earn some money doing what he does, the varieties he produces are not dependent on this.  He simply does everything he can to create the most exciting and delicious potatoes possible.

This is really a big contrast to large seed companies like Monsanto, who create varieties strictly for profit.  These for profit lines generally have little to do with taste, but rather what makes the perfect Mc Donalds french fry or what grows with the most uniform and blemish free appearance.

Most garden bloggers who grow their own food, and particularly those that read this blog, are very attracted to the idea of growing heirloom varieties.  Most people especially are interested in varieties associated with the history of the area they live.  This is a really good thing!  We all know these varieties taste great, are suitable for seed saving and often grow very well in our gardens.

What people sometimes forget is where these varieties came from!  Someone had to create them.  Like Tom’s potatoes, someone in the past created something they thought was exciting and tasted great, in fact someone not very different from Tom.

The kinds of varieties Tom creates are often called modern heirlooms, and are created exactly the same way heirloom varieties were created in the past.

The Current Crisis

The problem we have now is there are not many people like Tom left around, and many of them are getting old.

There’s been a big increase of awareness in the last few years about the importance of choosing to grow heirloom varieties in your garden, as a way of keeping these varieties alive.  There has not however been the same awareness of keeping breeding projects like Tom’s alive.

Directly and indirectly I know of about 5-10 people like Tom, who do projects like he does.  I know there are others, and there are increasing numbers of gardeners who are experimenting a bit in thier gardens, but the number of plant breeders who are actively involved in producing new varieties for public release is very, very small.  Surely most readers of this blog will know I’m well connected in the world of garden vegetables, and at least in the English speaking world I would probably be in touch with most of these people.  The number is very, seriously, small.

What I find equally distressing about the extraordinarily small number of public domain plant breeders are their personal circumstances.

Without any exceptions all the plant breeders I know have genuine financial difficulties.  They are sometimes living in an apartment without any of their own land on which to grow things.  They lack adequate tools or assistance with the physical tasks that confront them.  Their sole income is often selling the seeds they produce, effectively selling hours and hours of work and investment of personal resources for almost nothing.  Usually they are supported by a spouse that works.  It’s not unusual for them to lose years, even decades of work, because they don’t have adequate storage facilities for their breeding materials and they become ill or have other personal problems.

There is simply no functioning mechanism in today’s world for these people to be adequately paid for the work they do.  They produce seeds that are free of intellectual property rights, sold at the cost of production and distribution or traded between gardeners for free, and no royalties ever find their way back to the breeders.  There’s honestly often no one there to help when they need it the most, certainly not if they aren’t someone who’s very well known like Tom.

What does that say about the world we live in where the people who are creating the food we want to eat, with breeding projects that are the only real competition to Monsanto, and they are among the poorest among us?  There isn’t likely to be genuine transition of modern agriculture to sustainable methods without the participation of traditional plant breeders, and it’s so incredibly short sighted we are treating them this way.

As the US begins it’s anti-trust investigation into it’s domestic agriculture, we are all hoping there will be big changes, and public domain plant breeding is one of the possible alternatives.

As well as growing Tom’s potato seeds this year, I plan to talk a lot more about this problem as well as look for some solutions.

At the moment I can’t accept small donations, but I’m working on ways I might be able to do this in the future.  If you’re someone with a substantial amount of money to invest in trying to solve this problem, I hope you will get in touch with me and see if we can work something out.

While I’m open to any and all discussions, my particular interest is looking for mechanisms that will avoid ownership of the seeds or the channels of payment and royalties to the breeders.  For example, in the past year we have seen an ugly fight for control of the Seed Savers Exchange in the US, we have seen a similar fight for control of Kokopelli Seeds in Europe, and we’ve witnessed the opening of a global seed vault in Norway in which Bill Gates is one of the largest funders.

I am looking for a mechanism for funding public domain plant breeders where control is not something that’s owned, paid for or fought over.  This is the food of our future and our past, and it belongs in the public domain.  In particular I will be looking for a mechanism similar to what’s used for open source software like Linux.

I am not looking to create a non for profit organization controlled by a board of directors.

I will be looking for ways to both provide immediate, direct assistance to plant breeders, as well as provide long term incomes and royalties to the breeders as well as their families.

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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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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!

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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!

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The Technique

Make a list of what you think would be good to grow. Don’t worry if you’re not sure, this list will change over time. It’s important to have a place to start however.

Research crop rotations. In particular, when you begin you will probably organize your crops into four groups; Roots (carrots, beets, etc), Solancae (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, etc), Brassicas (cabbage family) and Other. There is possibly a fifth group, being perennials (plants that keep growing from one year to the next).

After researching crop rotations, go back to your list of what you want to grow and research how much space the plants need. Try to fit what you want to grow in each of their four (or five) groups, and plan roughly equal space for them in your garden according to a rotation schedule. This step can be very time consuming and frustrating, just try to do the best you can, and instead of being perfect commit yourself to improving it over time. Be sure to incorporate something that fixes nitrogen into your rotation plan.

Get the seeds. If you know of plant diseases in your area, look for resistant varieties. At the same time, if you don’t have a particular disease, getting a resistant variety won’t help and will limit your choices. Get to know your diseases and pests, and plan for them specifically. While there’s no reason you can’t grow commercial seeds, be sure to pick some OP/heirloom varieties so you can save seeds as discussed below. Be sure to check out the Bloggers Seed Network!

Make a garden layout plan. This too will probably change over time, so make the plan in a way changes can easily be incorporated. Also make a plan for when things get started, indoor or outdoors, and when they should be transplanted. Don’t forget to harden off your plants.

If possible, do a soil test. If this is not possible or desirable, inventory the weeds of the area, and see if they indicate problems with your soil. Make a plan for dealing with any problems you discover. If chemical fertilizer has been used recently, you will have special problems connected with this.

Be sure to make your own compost with your garden and other waste. Also look for locally obtained materials to use for mulch.

Collect your own rain water.  Water can be diverted from the roof of most structures into a barrel.  Home made systems can be made with recycled materials for almost no cost.  Purchased systems are also widely available.

Organize your garden into beds. These can be raised or not, with or without a border. The important thing to consider here is you should be able to easily reach all parts of the bed without having to step in them. This usually means they should not be wider than about 4-5 ft (1,5m), with access from both sides.

Don’t use chemical fertilizers, uncomposted manure or chemical pest controls. If you feel it’s necessary to use some fertilizer, try making your own like compost or green plant ‘teas’. If you want to buy a commercial product consider kelp or fish based products. Fertilizer of this nature is normally best applied directly on the leaves of the plants as needed.  Remember, the taste of fish can find it’s way into your vegetables, so use sparingly and not close to harvest time.

In particular in the case of plants in the cabbage family, be sure to research common insect and plant disease problems. It’s a good idea to do this with other plants as well. Be sure to ask around to other gardeners. In the case of the cabbage family you will likely need to pick caterpillars off by hand, keep the plants covered with a net or use a product called Bt. You may need to cover your carrots to protect them from the carrot fly. If you grow potatoes you should understand what blight looks like, and be prepared to promptly remove infected plants or their foliage. There are also some blight resistant varieties becoming available.

Be sure to save seeds from your OP varieties. By saving your own seeds, you create special varieties uniquely suited for your garden’s climate.

Extra for Experts

After establishing your garden, you may want to think about planning your garden so you have fresh food available for as much of the year as possible, as well as using season extending techniques like cold frames and greenhouses.

You may also wish to try cross pollinating some of your varieties, in order to try developing new ones. This can only be done with OP varieties.

Finally be sure to check out other organic bloggers and websites for growing techniques and plant ideas:

Daughter of the Soil
Fluffius Muppetus
In the Toad’s Garden
Mas Du Diable
MustardPlaster
Observer Organic Allotment Blog
Plan Be
The Vegetable Garden
Veggie Gardening Tips

There are many others! Be sure to check out my Blogroll.

Please let me know what I’m missing here!

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There are a couple of very important new members for the seed network this month.

Brown Envelope Seeds of Ireland joins the list.  While a couple of smaller seed companies have already joined, this is probably the largest.  A special note is they are particularly interested in trades.  If you have something special that could turn into a product a seed company might offer, I think they would love to hear from you!

They have a new blog as well: Brown Envelope Seeds Blog.

A Blog Called Fuggles also joined.  She has a great list of beans, peas, tomatoes and peppers.

Frank in Belgium, with his website called The Vegetable Garden is also offering his seeds as part of the network.  I posted recently about his new website and amazing collection of plants.

Making Requests or Joining

You don’t need to be a member of the seed network to request seeds, just contact the people directly by following the links near the bottom of the Seed Network page.

The seed network is open to anyone who wishes to share their open-pollinated, or self-made hybrid seeds.  See the Seed Network page linked to above or from the front page of this blog for details.  The most important things to keep in mind are seeds offered may not include commercial F1 hybrids, and if you do charge for your seeds it should be a small amount of money.  There’s no preset maximum cost, but you should be thinking along the lines of a few dollars per variety unless there are special reasons why it should be more.  Several people in the Seed Network offer their seeds for free.

You do not need a blog to offer seeds in this network.  If you have another place on the Internet to publish a list of seeds, just send me a link and I will include it in the list.  If you don’t have a place on the Internet to do this, just send me your seed list in an email and I’ll post it here.

Seed companies are particularly encouraged to join!  Understand however that you will be offering your seeds along side people offering free seeds, and in addition you should read this page explaining some of the background and reasons for starting the seed network.

If you have any questions please contact me!

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Monsanto
Syngenta
DuPont
Mitsui
Aventis
Dow

If you don’t make a conscious decision to buy your seed from somewhere else, they will almost certainly come one of these companies.

There are two kinds of seed retailers.  The first kind simply resells seeds from these companies, a commercial seed retailer.  While it’s not impossible that some of your seeds may come from somewhere else, these retailers enter into very restrictive marketing agreements and promise never to clearly label their seeds for what they are.  Instead they use marketing terms like ‘old style’ or ‘like what your grand mother grew’ or even ‘heirloom’ (because this is not a legally defined term).

The second kind of seed retailer makes a clear public statement that all of their seeds are non-hybrid or ‘Open Pollinated’.  With these type of seeds you can grow the plants and resave the seeds for yourself or to share with others.  Have a look in the Links section in the front of this blog for ideas of seed retailers like this.  Of course there are others around I don’t link to.  If a seed company sells a single F1 variety, they are a commercial seed retailer, and you cannot trust anything you buy from them!

If you live in Europe you will have a much harder time finding a non-commercial seed retailer.  This is because in Europe we have laws requiring seeds offered for sale have to be registered and on official lists.  Since the big six seed companies control these lists, it makes sense of course their seeds are featured.  There are a growing number of non-commercial seed companies operating in Europe, but they are technically illegal, and may not be around much longer.  If you live in Europe you may need to buy your seeds from abroad, probably North America where there are no seed laws.

The Blogger Seed Network only has non-commercial seeds, and at least some of the members will ship seed anywhere in the world!  You don’t need to have a blog to participate, and while offering some payment to cover the costs of sending the seeds is always appreciated, most people will send seeds for little or no payment.  You don’t need to offer seeds yourself to request them.

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The Seed Ambassadors have made what looks like a big update to their seed network seed list!  They have lots of interesting looking varieties.  In an email they mentioned a number of the varieties listed are only available via our seed network and are not being offered via the Seed Savers Exchange.  I forgot to mention this in the Seed Network News post of a few days ago.

Alan Reed Bishop of Homegrown Goodness interviewed famous plant breeder Alan Kapuler.  Fascinating reading!  We’ve been promised more interviews with interesting people, but I don’t know how he’s going to top that one.

Kokopelli seeds in France is in trouble again!  They have been evicted from an important historical vegetable garden, which is a serious blow to their work.

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Consider getting some or all your garden seeds from the Bloggers Seed Network (blog not required), rather than buying them.  There are thousands of varieties available for the asking!

Of course if you have seeds to offer, you’re also very welcome to join the seed network and share them!

It’s important to understand people have one overwhelming reason for offering their seeds to other gardeners, they really, genuinely, want to share them and see them grown in other people’s gardens.  You aren’t imposing on anyone by asking for seeds.  Of course you should offer to send a self addressed stamped envelope if you live in the same country, and/or offer to send a small payment to cover the costs of sending the seeds.  If you don’t have enough money to afford to pay for the seeds, ask anyway, because some people are willing to send them for free.

The expectation usually is however that the person receiving the seeds intends to save seeds themselves and reshare them with others.  You also need to understand what you want.  Don’t just contact someone in the seed network and ask them to send you some seeds!  You have to ask for specific varieties you want to grow.

Different from Public Seed Exchanges

Please understand this network is different from most public seed exchanges.  See my last post as an example of this.  In general people offering seeds via this seed network are not allowed to share half used packets of commercial seeds.  Nearly all of the seeds offered are homegrown and self saved.  All of the seeds you get from this seed network are suitable for growing and resaving!

Commercial seeds on the other hand are generally not accurately labelled, and you won’t know for at least two years if they are in fact suitable for saving because you will have to first grow the plants and save seeds, then try regrowing those seeds and seeing what happened. It’s the intention of most commercial seed companies to cause confusion over the suitability of their seeds for saving, because they would like gardeners who try to fail and become discouraged!  Seed companies make more money when you go back each year and buy more.

Never believe a seed company is selling you seeds suitable for saving unless they have a conspicuous and unambiguous public statement saying ALL of the seeds they offer are suitable for seed saving.  There are very few companies like this around, and you have to hunt for them!  See the links section of this blog for some ideas.

While it’s possible a few members of this seed network may have commercial activities alongside of offering seeds, most are just gardeners offering to share seeds from their own garden.  You won’t be encouraged to spend money on other things, and you don’t need to pay an entrance fee to participate.  Nothing but no-frill seeds, delivered to your door!

Newest Members of the Network

There have been several new members this month.  Lots of people offering tomatoes!

Gardening Fool has a mix of ornamentals and edible plants, but if you read about the stuff being working on, there are more edibles in the pipeline.

Agrarian Grrl’s Muse Located in the Annapolis valley in Nova Scotia, Canada.  A great blog too!

Crazytomato Almost a neighbor of mine, here in the Netherlands, has a great looking collection of vegetable seeds including many tomatoes!

Paquebot Located in Wisconsin, USA, has loads of tomatoes!

Saith Ffynnon Farm Located in north coastal Wales, UK (!) is offering a number of seeds collected from the wild in his area, including a number of edible plants.

Blue Ribbon Tomatoes Located in kentucky, USA, Maria is offering a number of really exciting local heirloom tomatoes!  She also has a great blog.

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The last concept in seed saving is that it’s very important to save seeds from the right plant or plants.  This is the easy one!

Always save seeds from the best plant or plants available

That’s it!  What exactly makes the best plant is simply what you think it is.  The strongest plant or most productive.  If you can taste it without distroying the plant, then the best tasting plant.

It’s always best to save seeds from a number of plants, in order to help maintain a good sized gene pool, but if there’s one plant that really stands out or is exciting for some reason, be sure to save seeds from that one apart from the others for separate replanting.  Sometimes new plant varieties are discovered this way!

Many people think when they plant seeds for something all the plants will grow to be exactly the same, but this is only true with (commercial) f1 hybrid plants.  If you’re growing your own self saved seeds, seeds saved in another garden or purchased OP or heirloom seeds, there will always be small differences in the plants.  Perhaps most of these differences will be too small to notice but often there will be good or bad differences that stand out from the others.  It’s very important to preserve the good and discard the bad!

All plants have a sort of genetic drift over time, that left on it’s own will result in plants that are less productive with an accumulation of undesirable traits.

In fact most varieties need periodic ‘grow outs’, where large numbers of plants are grown and seeds selectively saved, in order to clean them up and revitalize them.  By doing this a litte bit in your garden as you go along, you help keep the variety healthy.

DIY plant breeding by selection!

While all plants have chance genetic variations from time to time, plant breeders intentionally create new varieties by cross pollinating two or more plants and creating hybrids.  Once this is done, the genetics of the plants become unstable for several generations.  Arguably the first few generations more plant breeding skill is needed because this is when selection is made for very specific traits.

After the first few generations the basic plant is there, with the traits the plant breeder choose, but the plants are still somewhat unstable.  This is an ideal time for you to take the plant into your garden and finish off the breeding!  At this point the number of chance genetic variations is much higher than usual, so it’s much easier for you to grow a few plants in your garden and choose your favorites to save seeds from.  In this way, you develop your own variety custom made for your own garden.

I’m currently aware of two plant breeders offering plants at this stage:

Ben of Real Seeds

Alan of Hip-Gnosis Seed Development

I’m sure there are others around offering similar seeds, so don’t be afraid to look around the Internet yourself.

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I think confusion over cross-pollination and inbreeding depression are what lead most people to give up on seed saving, but it’s really not a difficult concept!  It really comes down to what Real Seeds say in their seed saving guide:

Do your plants breed in groups?

If yes, then you need to make sure the group is large enough and distinct groups are isolated from one another (these two concepts always go together).  If no, than you have a lot less to worry about when you save seeds.

If your plants breed in groups, then they are referred to as outbreeding plants.  Somehow the pollen from one plant travels to nearby plants, usually by way of insects or the wind. Plants that breed in groups are genetically predisposed to needing a large gene pool to stay healthy.

If your plants do not breed in groups, they are referred to as inbreeding plants.  Inbreeding plants usually have entirely self-contained flowers with both male and female elements, the pollen doesn’t leave the plant and they pollinate themselves.  These kinds of plants are genetically predisposed to being tolerant of a small gene pool.

The only slightly confusing part of all of this is that nature is not usually so kind as to give us something black and white, and there are lots of in between situations.  Plants are usually referred to as mostly inbreeding or mostly outbreeding.

Inbreeding Depression

If you save seeds from plants that breed in groups, with too small of a group, you will eventually have problems with inbreeding depression.  This can result in plants that are no longer suitable for growing, but it often takes a number of generations for these problems to emerge.

This can be fine if you’re only saving seeds for your self, and only intend to grow them for a couple of generations.  On the other hand, this can be a serious problem if you share the seeds with someone else who is unaware of the problem.

Plants that do not breed in groups do not develop this problem as easily, but it’s always a good idea to save seeds from a couple of plants to help avoid the problem.

Start with inbreeding plants

When you begin seed saving, you should start with plants that are nearly or totally inbreeding and therefore do not need to breed in a group with nearby plants and do not often accidentily cross pollinate with others.

Popular examples of this are tomatoes, beans and peas.

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