Saving the Seeds
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thenazareneway to Communions
Saving the Seeds
Until the early part of this century, most produce was locally grown. Vegetables and flowers were primarily selected for their flavor, ability to perform well in a specific environment and for local adaptability. It was also important for crops to ripen over a long season so harvests could be extended. Many people grew their own produce, saved the seeds for the next season and put up much of the harvest for winter.
Industrial areas in cities were supplied with produce from the outlying areas. Vegetables were all open pollinated. End users that purchased vegetables generally had a relationship with the growers with perhaps only a corner store in between. The goal of a grower was quality first and foremost because her/his livelihood depended on this relationship continuing.
During World War II, the United Stated made a concerted effort to ship large quantities of produce to devastated Europe. After the war was over, for the first time there was the infrastructure in place to ship food over long distances. The commercial sector began to use this structure to raise produce where it could be done most cheaply and get it to markets world wide.
Today, if you go into your local supermarket to buy produce, you will find primarily produce grown far away from you unless you live in a vegetable belt (California or Florida). Much of this produce is raised in near laboratory conditions. This set of growing methods brings a severely different set of selection criteria than did vegetable production pre WWII. Now, most vegetable varieties are selected for their mechanical harvesting and shipping ability, uniform ripeness, and ability to perform well in a chemical environment. Flavor and health enrichment are often secondary. Most seeds now used are hybrid.
About Seeds
* Hybrids: First generation hybrids (F1 hybrids), have been artificially-pollinated, and are patented, often sterile, genetically identical within food types, and sold from multi-national seed companies.
* GMO: A second kind of seed are genetically engineered or modified organisms. Bioengineered seeds are fast contaminating the global seed supply on a wholesale level, and threatening the purity of seeds everywhere. In a GMO seed, the DNA of the plant has been changed. A cold water fish gene for example was spliced into a tomato to make the plant more resistant to frost.
*Heirloom: A third kind of seed are called heirloom or open-pollinated seeds. These are genetically diverse seeds that have been passed on from generation to generation. For example, with heirloom seeds there are 10,000 varieties of apples, compared to the very few F1 hybrid apple types.
Here are some sources for finding heirloom seeds from seed saving organizations. These organizations represent a movement of several thousand backyard gardeners who are searching the countryside for endangered vegetables, fruits and grains and maintaining their integrity.
The Seed Savers Exchange
The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), is a nonprofit tax-exempt organization that is saving old-time food crops from extinction.
Kent and Diane Whealy founded SSE in 1975 after an elderly relative bestowed three kinds of garden seeds brought from Bavaria four generations earlier.
The Whealys began searching for other "heirloom varieties" (seeds passed down from generation to generation) and soon discovered a vast, little-known genetic treasure.
SSE's members are maintaining thousands of heirloom varieties, traditional Indian crops, garden varieties of the Mennonite and Amish, vegetables dropped from all seed catalogs and outstanding foreign varieties. Each year hundreds of members use SSE's publications to distribute such seeds to ensure their survival.
Each winter SSE publishes a 304-page Seed Savers Yearbook which contains names and addresses of 900 members and 6,000 listings of rare vegetable and fruit varieties that they are offering to other gardeners. Seeds are obtained by writing directly to the members who are listing those varieties.
http://www.seedsavers.org
Native American Seeds
Native seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a nonprofit seed conservation organization working to preserve the traditional native crops of the U.S. Southwest and Northwest Mexico. For centuries Native American farmers have grown corn, squash, beans and other crops under a variety of growing conditions.
The NS/S Seedbank houses, for future generations, the seeds of crops and wild plants traditionally used as food, fiber and dyes by prehistoric and more recent cultures inhabiting the arid southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico.
NS/S encourages the continued use of these plants in their native habitats, and also distributes them widely to home gardeners, researchers and free of charge to Native American farmers. Wild relatives of crops - such as wild beans, chiles, gourds and cotton - are included in Native Seeds/SEARCH's conservation efforts.
NS/S's informative annual seed catalog lists more than 200 varieties for sale. Each crop listing includes seed saving information as well as culture and folklore.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/default.php
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is a wonderful source for heirloom seeds and other open-pollinated (non-hybrid) seeds with an emphasis on vegetables, flowers, and herbs that grow well in the Mid-Atlantic region.
They support seed saving and traditional seed breeding and do extensive germination and purity testing of seeds and nursery stock to ensure the highest quality seed possible.
Browse their mail-order site to find heirloom tomatoes, peppers, ginseng, potato onions, okra, naturally colored cotton, southern-style greens, and much more.
http://www.southernexposure.com/index.html
The Mayan word `gene' means "spiral of life." The genes in heirloom seeds give life to our future. Unless the backyard gardeners and organic farmers keep these seeds alive, they will disappear altogether. This is truly an instance where one person –a lone gardener in a backyard vegetable garden–can potentially make all the difference in the world.
Brothers and Sisters, support seed saving organizations. Visit their web sites and order their catologes. In these times, you must know how to grow your own food, save seeds and can fruits and vegatables. It does not matter how small of a garden you have. Become a member of an heirloom seed exchange. It is up to YOU to save the seeds.
