Hello there!
Well, I finally have begun a blog. I have been wanting to have one for a while now, more for my own personal happiness than anything else. This will be a place where I can catalog my adventures in gardening and share my discoveries in food.
I have been in love with growing things for a long time now. I'm almost thirty years old and I have loved plants and gardening of any kind since I was about fifteen. My first job was at a Garden Center in Northern Virginia. It was amazing. It has taken me and my husband a few years, but we have finally gotten a place with a decent yard that I have cut in half to have a nice garden.
I am a passionate heirloom gardener and seed saver. This being said, I'm a full supporter of plant breeding in the old-fashioned sense of the word. How else will we have the next generation of heirloom seeds? I am fully against GMO seeds and shudder at the repercussions these practices have on our food supply and farming in general. But coming up with new varieties that will hold true to themselves is an amazing and enriching experience. To finally get that perfect combination of genes so that you have a variety tailor made for your requirements!? That is just mind blowing to me!
As awesome as it is to create your own plant varieties, I find a much greater satisfaction in maintaining the genetic diversity and heritage that comes with heirloom gardening and seed saving. There are probably as many reasons for saving heirloom seed as there are savers, but for me it is about three things: Genetic diversity and stability, being able to save and re-plant my seed without having to buy new seeds each year, and the amazing history that comes with heirloom seeds.
Most of the plant seeds you can get at the garden centers or walmart or wherever you buy your seed from is all F1 hybrids. These plants can be great and have amazing results...for a season. The problem with those F1 or later versions are that they will not come back true to self. In other words, when you save seed from your F1 tomato plant and replant those seeds the next year, what pops up will most likely be more similar to one of the parent strains used to create that original F1 or you could just end up with some completely random and unstable version this year. It's an amazing money-making ploy. You have to buy new seeds each year if you want to keep growing that beautiful hybrid you love so much.
I'm not saying hybrids are evil, they have their uses if you like them. But I prefer to be able to use the seeds from my tomato plants to grow the same thing next year with no cost to myself. And as I've already stated, breeding your own varieties is super fun. But it rubs me the wrong way not to be able to plant the seeds from this year's pepper plant next year and know I will have the same plant sprout up. The stability and dependability and the money savings appeal to me.
The problem with everyone buying the same exact seed (usually a hybrid) all over the country from the same supplier is that we are losing our genetic diversity. Over 89% of the varieties of vegetables that were grown world wide only 100 years ago are gone! Not only have we lost the stories and intriguing history that comes with each different variety of vegetable, but we've lost the diverse genes that each of those varieties had to offer. Traits and genes that were carefully selected and cultivated over years of use and production. These varieties were absolutely amazing in their adaptability to the region they were grown in. It's mind boggling to realize the extent of such diversity and heartbreaking when you realize all those hundreds of years of selection and breeding and adaptation are GONE. Because the major seed companies decided to market one or two varieties to the consumer. And many of those can't even be saved and used next season! What happens if the two major varieties of cucumber that everyone and their mother is growing experience a sudden catastrophe? A vulnerability to one plague or another. You end up with a whole lot of damaged genetic material and no diversity to help recover from the crop failure because everyone grows the same darn thing and the 200 other old strains that used to be available are gone forever.
Now, that is a super extreme example, but you get the picture. But all that aside, perhaps the most important reason for growing and maintaining heirloom seeds is the history behind them. I love to read the stories that come with heirloom seeds. This variety of bean was grown specifically because So-and-so's grandmother used it to make the BEST succotash this side of the Mississippi! Or such and such tribe grew this tobacco for use in these spiritual ceremonies. I mean, it is just wonderful to learn why this heirloom was cherished and used for years by the people who saved it's seeds over and over. This year I'm growing some tomatoes from seed that used to be widespread in Iraq and no longer is due to the wars and the push for hybrid seed use on the grounds of 'advancement'. I don't think this variety of tomato should be lost just because right now that area is experiencing serious social and agricultural change. It breaks my heard to think that something that was passed down and cultivated for centuries would just be lost in a matter of a few seasons of instability and restructuring.
Well, anyway, this blog went on for way too long, but that's how introductions go. Next time I'll post a link to the video I made of my garden's first couple of weeks. Until then!
