Seed Savers: Group works to keep plant diversity alive

Thirteen thousand, five hundred and seventy one.

That's the number of different varieties of edible plants listed in the 35th annual Seed Savers 2010 Yearbook.

The Seed Savers Exchange is an organization devoted to the preservation of seed varieties by the growing and trading of them among members.

The yearbook, the size of a small phone book, is a compilation of what the members have to offer. Members correspond with each other to request seeds.

The yearbook is an awesome undertaking, with 704 members offering seeds. These seeds come from all over the world and represent the hard work of a diverse group of gardeners dedicated to continuing the genetic lines.

Without their efforts, this rich resource would disappear. This is serious business. Without a diverse gene pool to select our vegetables from, we leave the food supply vulnerable to disease. Genetic diversity translates to food security.

John Torgrimson, who works in media relations for the SSE, said that information is collected from members in early November and compiled into a database. Joanne Thuente, the database manager, compiles the data. This year, for the first time, there will also be an online database.

Torgrimson said that about 15 people get together for a "proofing party" before the copy goes to the printer and is mailed to more than 11,400 members in February.

Though the importance of the work of preserving unique varieties cannot be measured, the yearbook has a neighbor-sharing-over-the-picket-fence quality to it. It is full of tidbits and notes that create a catalog of seed folklore.

"Every one of these seeds has a story to tell," Torgrimson said. "This is something really unique and historical."

You'll find Blue Shackamaxon pole beans that one contributor says are "also known as Treaty bean, grown by Lenape people and preserved among Quaker farmers."

Or consider Internment Camp Melon "reported to have been grown in Topaz, the Japanese Internment camp in Utah in the 1940s, a dark chapter in U.S. history."

There are 193 pages of tomatoes listed in the yearbook, with about 20 listings per page. You can find your Beefsteak and German Johnson varieties, but that's not the half of it. There is Japanese Crab, described as a "high-yielding pink Beefsteak type from Andrey Baanovski, Minsk, Belarus."

Work Release Paste promises a "high yield of meaty 14-20 oz. ruffled fruits, originally from an Italian heritage inmate at the facility in Hudson, N.Y. The variety came with his family when they emigrated from Italy."

Butler Skinner is a pink beefsteak fruit named for a Winchester, Ky., jailer who always grew a plant outside the city jail and would give away seedlings when he ran for office.

If Alice fell into a vegetable garden at the end of her journey down the rabbit hole, it might be planted with some of the Seed Savers tomatoes: Burgundy Traveler, Strawberry Wedge, Yellow Cookie, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken, Goat Tit, Portuguese Monster, Green Sausage, Zorica's Croatian Bulls Eye, Bushy Chabarovsky -- the list amusingly continues.

Two local gardeners are listed in the 2010 catalog: Bill Crow, a vegetable gardener at Old Salem, and Gary Maness, a gardener in Greensboro. Crow said that several of the varieties that he has preserved in the gardens of Old Salem originated from contributions to the SSE by William Woys Weaver, the author of a popular book on heirloom vegetable gardening.

Though little information exists on the actual varieties the Moravians grew, seed with Pennsylvania heritage was likely carried down the wagon road from Bethlehem to Bethabara and Salem. Crow lists Risser Sickle, an edible podded pea that he says has great flavor and a neat sickle shape to the pod, as originally from Weaver. He also offers Blonde Berlin and several other lettuce varieties. "Lettuce is relatively easy to save seed from" Crow said. "With only about 25 feet from other varieties being far enough away to isolate it and assure the variety is pure."

Maness grows vegetables in pots sitting on tarps, "with drip irrigation running everywhere." He uses spun-polyester sheets to prevent cross-pollination of his varieties. In the yearbook, he offers 26 varieties of eggplants and 51 varieties of peppers.

Among them are the Ecuadorian Devils Breath pepper and the Black Scorpion Tongue pepper. As you might imagine, these are hot peppers -- extremely hot. He also noted that the yearbook offers Bhut Jolokai pepper. "Also known as the Ghost Pepper, it is the world's hottest peppers as certified by the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007, and is 250 to 500 times hotter than a Jalapeno." The Spoon tomato is another Maness favorite. "You can put a dozen or more in a teaspoon and they have a great tomato flavor, just like a big ol' slicing tomato,"he wrote in an e-mail.

Besides the incredible diversity, he said, flavor and cost are the main attraction in growing heirlooms. He says that most hybrid varieties don't have the flavor that the heirlooms do, and the seed of hybrids must be bought and replanted every year. Saved seeds from hybrids will not grow true to form.

"You can buy a pack of 25 heirloom seeds for $3. If only 50 percent germinate, which is an unheard-of low percentage, you will end up with 12 plants. If you save seeds from half of them, you will still end up with hundreds, if not thousands, of seeds, and your total cost for all these seed will be three whole bucks."

Maness got into heirloom gardening about 10 years ago. He joined the SSE in 2004. "I've never regretted joining this great organization," he said. "I've communicated with a lot of great members of SSE over the last six years, many of which were instrumental in the heirloom-seed movement. I would highly recommend anyone interested in gardening to join SSE and/or its sister organization, the Flower and Herb Exchange. You will not regret it."

The Seed Savers Exchange is nonprofit, member-supported organization. Membership is $40 annually. Gardeners interested in joining can write Seed Savers Exchange, 3094 North Winn Road, Decorah, Iowa 52101, or see the Web site www.seedsavers.org.

If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal


.com.