The Work Of A Seed Library

Beans with a history 

When immigrants left their homes heading for a new home in a distant land, they took that which they valued.  For many of them, some of their most important possessions were the family seeds, handed down from generations for longer than many could remember.  

One such family immigrating from Italy, those seeds were of beans.  They brought the seeds for the family bean to America and like many Italians, settled in Chicago.  The beans continued to be a part of the family's table fare and, their longevity as a part of the family, made them seem to be almost a member of the family - dinners in summer and early fall without this bean, were a part of the family's tradition.  

The beans finally came to be under the stewardship of a man who moved his family to Los Angeles.  They settled into a home near the Pacific Ocean and planted the beans.  The crop failed - and no one was certain why.  This was the story for year after year.  Finally, one day, I was sitting in the dental chair in the office of this man with the Italian family bean.  He was pretty excited to hear that I was growing out old heirloom seed varieties and I was very interested in growing out his family bean.

After a couple of false starts, I found about 100 bean seeds in my hand at the best time in Los Angeles to plant beans and they went into the ground.  I planted only 50 seeds, observing the principle of seed savers to never exhaust all the seeds you have of any one variety.  Of the 50 seeds, only one germinated.  Victor gave me more seeds and I planted 50 more - with three germinating.  I decided to hold off planting the rest - I could try them again next year if this crop failed entirely.  

I have some fairly healthy plants and furthermore, even though they are still very young plants, they have dozens of very long beans on them.  The seeds are not that large and the pods are prolific.  

I have cautioned many students not to 'count their beans before they're soup' but I can't help myself from the joy I feel with the new crop of this bean.  We will keep all the seeds we get this year, but next year, we'll return a large packet to the family and we'll start to offer limited amounts of beans of this heirloom to our members.  

I hope we do this kind of project a lot in the coming years.  Each saved variety hold genetic diversity that we have been losing for over 100 years.  SLOLA and seed libraries all over the US are working to ensuring we have more diversity in our diets and the wealth of a vibrant food system; part of our mission and passion.

david

Saving a Compromised Old Favorite

Luther Burbank is one of my heroes.  I wrote a glowing review of his recent biography, The Garden of Invention by Jane Smith, a book I devoured in a weekend and when I toured his home in Santa Rosa, I felt like I had come to holy ground when I got to walk into his greenhouse.  Luther Burbank gave us the Burbank Potato, Santa Rosa Plums, Shasta Daisies and hundreds of other plants.  Luther Burbank ranks up there with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison (both of whom admired him as well).  He was a genius at plant breeding and we all have eaten better because of him. 

One of the annual vegetables he bred is the Burbank Red Slicing Tomato introducing it in 1915.  Burbank reported his family put up shelves' full of tomato sauce every year and this was the only tomato they used. In seed catalog after seed catalog, the tomato is noted for excellent production of 'medium sized' firm fruits.  A recent meeting with Terry Allan of Seeds of Change, inspired a community project for the Seed Library of Los Angeles.  

Terry told me that the Burbank Slicer had been falling out of favor over the years because the fruits were getting consistently smaller, less on the 'medium' size and more on the 'cherry' size.  I don't know if this is the reason the Slicer isn't in this year's selection from Seeds of Change, but it isn't. Intuitively, it became apparent that SLOLA could be instrumental in saving Luther's prized tomato variety.

What a great project for a seed library!  We are, after all, learning how to grow plants out to seed and how to save that seed.  Tomatoes are self fertile which means even beginners can help.  It's a perfect project for a seed library and its members.  Terry gave me a couple packets of seeds which were divided into envelopes of six seeds each and distributed to the SLOLA membership in last meeting.  I had enough left over for my UCLA Extension class to also plant six seeds each.  

The instructions for this project are to plant the seeds and grow the plants; save seed from only the biggest fruits - but try to select a fruit from the earliest fruits, one in the middle and one towards the end, so we don't inadvertently select for an early or late tomato.  The only selectivity we want is larger fruit.  

I don't know how many years we will need to select for larger tomatoes to make an impression on the genome, but we can do it.  I am excited about this project and I hope we can find others where our seed saving expertise can be tweaked even more and we can make an impression on the seeds in the market today.  

It's a great time to be on this seed saving front!  And we are on the lookout for more projects like this for our membership.  We can make a difference in what people have to eat too! 

david