Regarding Best Practices and Seed Inventories of SLOLA Branches

This paper is to address a few discrepancies in the last several months that are a significant part of the core concepts by which the Seed Library of Los Angeles was founded. This paper begins to establish a network for the management of the inventories each library has and those concepts. The addition of the Sepulveda Branch brought out several facts that need to be recalled:

1. Never should any hybrids be offered as a part of SLOLA inventory. Hybrids are not likely to bear true and this has several ramifications – specifically, borrowers are given a false sense of our priorities and of the capabilities of hybrid seeds, at minimum, granting permission for them to feel that hybrid seeds are not only condoned, but must be replantable to be saved in the future; and that SLOLA believes hybrids are A-OK. Neither assumption is true. Our founding documents make it very clear that SLOLA does not condone or offer hybrid seeds at any time under any condition. It is better that we not have seeds than have hybrid seeds. This is in no way negotiable.  
2. SLOLA libraries should have different inventories at all times. The exact proportion of inventories is dependent on the number of members and availability of seeds appropriate to the microclimate served by the branch. The easy way to determine this is to look at a Sunset Western Garden Guide and use the Sunset Zones described in the beginning of the book. More than any other publication on gardening, the Sunset Zones allow a gardener to become intimately connected to the garden conditions in that area.
   
   
   For example, in setting up the Sepulveda Branch, we ascertained that their zones were much more appropriate for melons, cucurbits, large tomatoes, squash and sweet corn than the gardens of Mar Vista and Venice. Hence, the majority of those seeds went to them.

3. Inventories should include seeds returned, and seeds should be returned to the library where they were dispensed. This restocks the shelves with seeds already moving towards a variety adapted to those conditions specifically.

We are looking for “hyper-local” seeds in the end. All branches, for example, might include Burbank Slicer Tomato, but in several generations seeds at each branch, differences in growth should begin to be apparent. Once the seeds have segregated, only in case of a disastrous loss should the other branches step in to help another branch – unless there are plenty of extra seeds on hand. Of course, branches may share seeds for cross-polination experiments, or if one branch has rare seeds that have been procured locally, those seeds should be shared with other branches as soon as possible to prevent a catastrophe at one branch from loosing all the seeds.

This is very simple. Whatever will work to save seeds and to build hyper local productivity should be every librarian's goal. As SLOLA matures and every branch's seed diversify, I remain grateful for the support in bringing seeds to new communities and reinvesting others with the spirit of the seeds. All of this encourages us, as seed savers and seed stewards, towards creating solid educational programs that all of us can use for the betterment of the communities' seed independence and seed sovereignty for years to come. Our part in this is vital.

To prioritize plainly:

1. Save the seed/save the variety; save the name. Using the Ark of Taste as one guideline, we could also reach out into our communities (i.e. community gardens) and find the growers of seeds that are not readily available and commit to save those varieties and not lose the significance of their origins.
2. Share the seeds when you have enough to share without fear of losing all your seeds; SLOLA chapters could come together for an Annual Seed Swap among all the branches to meet and greet one another and seed savers from each branch could be recognized for their efforts in saving local varieties of seed.
3. Historical seeds from local gardeners and farmers should be shared with other branches as soon as any give branch has sufficient inventory. Each branch is encouraged to find ways of bringing seeds and the stories about them to their branches and disseminate the stories with the seeds as a branch project.
4. Germane to the idea of branches saving seeds, we also need to preserve the story about those seeds! Programs might be developed around stories of the seeds, whether they come from local individuals or stories that come to us from other sources. At some time in the future, such stories could be put into book form for further dissemination.

At this time, (November 2018), SLOLA, recognizing the difficulty of saving certain seeds would rather all but the most experienced seed savers, simply check out seeds of the Cabbage family and not attempt to return the seed. Experience of some of our best seed savers suggest that saving seed from plants (for example, the cabbage family) is simply impossible. It would be better to have no seed in stock than to have seeds that won't come true. An ounce or two of seeds for these plants should be inexpensive enough and it would be better to have seed that can be produces true. At some time in the future, we may have the ability to produce good seed for the Brassicaceae, but until then, let's just buy the seeds. Corn, because of population sizes to keep the varieties healthy is another one we should buy seeds until we can find the land and the volunteers to keep varieties viable.

David King

Best Practices Chair

Librarians and Seed Inventory (First of Series)

Dear Librarians,

We are all grateful for the work you do! No one in a seed library does more for the well-being of the library than you! In your hands rest the sacred seeds we share with one another,holding in trust for the generations that will follow on.

There has never been a consistent way to deal with how many seeds should be found in a packet. Initially, with SLOLA, librarians weighed the seeds at checkout. You can imagine what that scene was like! There were long waits to get your seeds, even with three or four librarians helping check out seed.

We tried measuring spoons for a very short time, but it never caught on with librarians. The general attitude seems to be more seeds is “more better and lets fill that envelope up!” But this process needs to be reconsidered as contradicts the reasoning for a seed library to exist in the first place.

We did not feel when we started out that members should expect to get ALL their seeds from SLOLA. Our library was not created to supply every seed to everyone. In fact, looking at the library from a viewpoint that emphasizes out-flow from the library, misses the entire point. I hate it when people say “Oh, it's free seeds!” It may be, but that's not the whole enchilada and starting with the “free seeds” thinking totally ignores why hundreds of hours have been volunteered to get these seeds to people.

Seeds from our library are meant to be returned.

We do have a few varieties of seeds we give out and do not want back (I..e. cabbage family plants that cross) but for the most part, we are providing seeds in order to build up an inventory of seeds grown in and adapted to our community. It is one of the reasons why SLOLA did not start with city libraries. We wanted actual gardeners to dispense and check in seeds – someone who was more or less familiar with the seeds and each of their limitations or strengths. We have proven, in the last 10 years, that our reasoning was faulty in that we get no more seed returned that the library seed libraries – and in fact, our insistent harping on the return of seed may have, in fact, backfired as people began to stay away in droves. However, in filling packets, we work with the idea that members get enough seeds to attend to their purpose leaving enough plants to return.

The seed packets we hand out are not meant to be full enough to compete with commercial packets. They are meant to have enough seeds for the member to grow and harvest for a family, providing sustenance and some seeds left over to produce seeds for the library.

In practice, checking out seeds for a large tomato, one might include 8 seeds per envelope, but for a cherry tomato, only six. Especially for those more vigorous vines of cherry tomatoes. You can get by with less tomato seeds in Altadena than you can on the coast because so many fall to powdery mildew on the coast and the dry heat in Altadena at minimum slows powder mildew.

In both cases, the member should have plenty of tomatoes to eat with enough left over to save seeds.

It is important, in the case of the larger tomato, to try to obtain seeds from more than one plant – if this means harvesting tomatoes from several plants and only taking seeds from a quarter of each tomato, this is preferable to having all the seeds from a single specimen plant. Diversity is a challenge when we have so few people actually returning seeds. The larger the gene pool for the seeds we save, the better!

Having used the example of the tomato, remember that each plant and each seed are unique and deserve their own attention. The more seeds you've grown and played with in your garden and the amount of hours you have spent in formal instruction on seed saving, the more grounded you will be – and I say that without the slightest bit of irony.

Each type of seed must be considered differently according to season (warm or cold), annual, biennial or perennial, method of pollination, likelihood of crossing, and level of difficulty in growing in our climate – taking all that into consideration for how many seeds are given per checkout. Every so often, someone brings in a bag of a million cilantro seeds – put them on the free table – most of us have stash of cilantro hidden under the bed and those who don't, soon will!

Return of the progeny of seeds checked out is one of our most important principles. We want to ask folks to make an effort to save seeds – but also give them the information on returning seeds. There is a balance to this that I'm afraid has not been mastered. From the beginning of SLOLA we held monthly meetings where members were admonished to bring back seeds from their plants and I am convinced that the constant drumming of that theme managed to scare enough people into leaving SLOLA rather than bring back inferior seed. There has to be a middle ground where people recognize they are not being given “free seeds” but are expected to bring back seeds as soon as they possibly can. There will always be a gang among our members who do not grasp what the organization is actually all about. I believe we are strong enough to proceed without their contributions or understanding. Still, we should try to reach them.

If there are comments and thoughts about this memo to Seed Librarians, please respond to me at greenman@slola.org. I look forward to exploring this topic with you in greater detail and encourage ideas and commentary. This paper is posted – along with others at https://slola.blogspot.com/ where I am keeping all the SLOLA Best Practices memos as they are written.

David King,

Best Practices

Hard Seed Saving

Whenever there is a seed saving class, you see seeds divided into easy, moderately hard and hard - or some variation of that.  Easy seeds are defined with the least amount of brain power and the least effort - presumably 'hard' is the opposite of that.

That aint necessarily so.

Oftentimes the difference between easy and hard is simply the willingness to observe what's happening in your garden and use that knowledge to your advantage.  In small scale seed saving, there is a minimum of tools required (which I feel is a flaw, being an avid tool collector myself) and the techniques are fairly straight forward.  Corn is not, of itself that hard to save.  But our location, throughout Los Angeles makes it hard to save; someone somewhere has corn flowering the same time yours is!  The only way to save it without doubt is to pollinate it by hand.  I intend to cover that in the near future, so stay tuned!

Corn is wind pollinated - and so it pollinates nothing if no wind blows the pollen (from the boy flowers - the tassels) to the silks (aka the girl flowers) of other corn plants. The descendents of the European invaders are very uptight about keeping plants "pure."  That's what makes corn maddening to us.  It's hard to get that wind to blow only where you want it! 

There are ways to control corn pollen and get plants pollinated with only the genes you want.  This article is not about that.

The peoples who took corn from a sad little grass plant into the culinary powerhouse it s today, had a very different view of plants and plant breeding.  Isolating a given set of genetics was the European design, but the breeders of corn took a different approach from ancient times to present day, they allowed the corn to freely cross - and they saved corn from all ears, not just the big ones.  The result is that there are hundreds of different corn varieties available for a huge  variety of different ways to cook and eat it! 

Corn unshelled on the right, bowl of Red Bread seed center and the
empty cobs, already shelled on the left.

I was gifted with some ears of Mohawk Red Bread Corn from Rowan White a few years back.  I grew it out, got a nice harvest and hung onto the seed, stored it somewhat indifferently until last month when I was asked if I had any corn for a ceremony and I offered up the Mohawk Red Bread. 

It was making a whole circle in may ways.  The corn was now going back to Mohawk country to help Eliot Cowan, author of "Plant Spirit Medicine"do a ceremony. The woman who asked for the corn seed had met Eliot through his book, which was stocked in that book store because I asked for them to stock it as it was supplementary reading for my Botany class.  Now the lot of us had come together for a ceremony that brought this wonderful corn out of California back to upper New York state.

Pulling the corn seeds out of storage was a mystical experience.  The seed was no longer fresh, so my instructions were to plant more seeds than he needed just to ensure a good stand of seed.

I didn't have time to give these seeds a "germ test" (see my other article, Are Those Seeds Any Good, Mister? for some back ground on this). 

I brought out my corn sheller and tried my best to NOT just take the good looking kernels from good looking cobs.  I tried to emulate the corn growers and I tried to shut my internal neediness for a stab at perfection.  

A corn sheller.  This one is sized for popcorn, but it
was the right size for my Red Bread Corn too!

These seeds were put into a quart glass canning jar to sit in the freezer for three days.  At that time, they'll be reintroduced to the ambient temperature and I will get a germ test done.  Here's hoping I didn't give Eliot bad seeds!  

david

Are Those Seeds Any Good, Mister?

I was given a big bag of fava bean seed as the Seed Library of Los Angeles was clearing out some old seeds lately. The bag was labeled "Fava Beans, 2010"  I'm thinking "What is the longevity of fava beans anyway?" Most seeds figure to be close to dust over seven years (tomatoes being the common exception), but every so often, something was saved right and conditions all along favored longer life and the seeds will still sprout. I had no idea about fava bean seed, although, larger seeds seem to take longer to die than itty bitty ones (tomatoes definitely are the outliers!).  

Some quick research, I found a UC Davis article that said "When stored under favorable conditions, most bean seeds have a life expectancy of 3 years."  

It's hard to see, but this bag of fave bean seed is labeled 2010.
Good? Bad?
What to do?  

Gosh. At 8 years, 2010 to 2018 seems like a long shot! But here's a whole bag of the stuff, I would really hate to throw it away. I don't know any magic, but sometimes a 'germination test' feels like magic.

What Is a Germ Test And How Do You Do It?

Most seed savers abbreviate 'germination' into the monosyllable 'germ' and so you hear us talking about 'germ tests' not germination tests. Too much work to say all that! 

You will need a soft cloth or a paper towel. A water proof container - most folks use plastic zip lock bags. For this one, I used a bag that a loaf of bread came in and when I'm done, I'll wash it and use it again!

Lastly, of course, you'll need some seeds and some water.

Fava bean seeds are big and bulky. They are not the most convenient species to take a germ test. First time out, you might want to do corn, peas, regular beans - something substantial but not as bulky as a fava bean. 

The number of seeds you will use for a germ test will depend on how many seeds you have and how much mental energy you want to spend. Educators usually talk in terms of 100 seeds. The beauty of this is that when you're done, simple count up the number that sprouted and you have the real percentage of viable seeds. And that works if you dealing in farm size quantities, but if you have only 100 seeds to start with, you'll be using the germ test seeds to plant! It takes a good deal of patience to plant already sprouted seeds. 

The actual appearance of my finished germ test.
Five beans per row, four rows - 20 seeds total.

So here we are.  I only used four rows of five beans and even that was hard to keep in the paper towel roll!  That's twenty seeds, so to get my percentage, I count my sprouted bean seeds and multiply by five and that will be the percentage out of 100.  It's hard to see in this photo, but there are 12 sprouted seeds (and by the way, this test was only for five days, if I really wanted to push things, I could have easily kept the seeds in the roll for up to 10 days, getting an even higher percentage, but I was in a hurry for many reasons).  Twelve sprouted seeds times five is 60%, because, if you're math challenged like I am, it takes five times twenty to make 100 and that's how we find the percent. 

Now 60% germination will not win any real award, in fact it is illegal to sell seed with 60% germination.  But in this case, to use these beans up, I would plant 2 seeds for every plant I want.  If I was wanting to have a fava in every spot where I planted them, I might sow two seeds per spot and then put a couple seeds into 4" containers to fill in any hole that ended up empty.

So, yes ma'am. These are good seeds enough for home use. They'll spend the summer in a cool, dark and dry place (in the plastic bag in my fridge with the door closed almost all the time) and I'll plant them out this fall. Or, you might find some of them with the Seed Library Of Los Angeles where you'll get double the amount to make up for the low germination. 

Soon, I'll be showing off my black garbanzo beans I'm SO excited about.  Do stay tuned!

david

Food Plants From the Ark of Taste We Can Grow In Southern California

In our Mediterranean climate, we can grow a lot of different food plants – in fact, almost all of them. The only time we find difficulty in growing plants that thrive elsewhere is with the perennials and fruit trees. 

The Ark of Taste is a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction. By identifying and championing these foods we keep them in production and on our plates.

Since 1996, more than 2,500 products from over 50 countries have been added to the International Ark of Taste. Over 200 of these foods are from the USA, and we are always seeking more edible treasures to include.

The Ark of Taste is a tool for farmers, ranchers, fishers, chefs, grocers, seed libraries, educators and consumers to seek out and celebrate our country's diverse biological, cultural and culinary heritage.

More information about discovering, nominating, tasting and championing Ark of Taste varieties can be found at: https://www.slowfoodusa.org/ark-of-taste-in-the-usa

Here are a list of many of the Ark of Taste plants we can grow in our SoCal gardens:

Algonquian Squash (Cucurbita pepo)

Amish Paste Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum) – this is one of my favorites

Amish Pie Squash (Cucurbita maxima)

Arikara Yellow Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry (Physalis pruinosa)

Aunt Ruby’s German Green Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Beaver Dam Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Bodega Red Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Bolita Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Boston Marrow Squash (Cucurbita maxima)

Bradford Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus v. Bradford 1)

Brown and White Tepary Bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) 

Burbank Tomato (I know it as “Burbank Slicing Tomato) (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Canada Crookneck Squash (Cucurbita moschata) 

Candy Roaster Squash (Cucurbita maxima)

Chalk’s Early Jewel Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Chapalote Corn (Zea mays)

Cherokee Purple Tomato (Lycopersicon Lycopersicum)

Cherokee Trail of Tears Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Chiltepin Pepper (Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum)

Christmas Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus)

Crane Melon (Cucumis melo)

Datil Pepper (Capsicum chinense)

Djena Lee’s Golden Girl Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Early Blood Turnip-Rooted Beet (Beta vulgaris)

Early Rose Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Fish Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Four Corners Gold Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Garnet Chili Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

German Pink Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Gilfeather Turnip (Brassica rapa subsp. rapa)

Green Mountain Potato (Solanum tuberosum)

Hanson Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Hayman Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas v. Hayman)

Hidatsa Red Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Hidatsa Shield Figure Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Hinkelhatz Hot Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Hopi Mottled Lima Beans (Phaseolus lunatus)

Hussli Tomato Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

I'Itoi Onion (Allium cepa var. aggregatum)

Inchelium Red Garlic (Allium sativum)

Inciardi Paste Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Ivan Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Ivis White Cream Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas)

Jacob’s Cattle Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian Frying pepper (Capiscum annuum)

Jimmy Red Corn (Zea mays indentata)

Kentucky Limestone Bibb Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

King Philip Corn (Zea mays)

Kleckley Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus)

Landrace Red Creole Onion (Allium cepa)

Lina Cisco’s Bird Egg Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Livingston’s Globe Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Livingston’s Golden Queen Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata)

Makah Ozette Potato (Solanum tuberosum subsp. andigena)

Marrowfat Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Martin's Carrot Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

Mayflower Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Mississippi Silver Hull Bean-Crowder Cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata)

Moon & Stars Watermelon (Citrullus lanatus)

Nancy Hall Sweet Potato (Ipomoea batatas)

New Mexican Native Chile Pepper (Capiscum annuum)

New Mexico Native Tomatillo (Physalis philadelphica)

O'odham Pink Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Orange Oxheart Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Pantin Mamey Sapote (Pouteria sapota)

Purple Straw Wheat (Triticum aestivum)

Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Red McClure Potato

Rio Zape Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Rockwell Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Roy’s Calais Flint Corn (Zea mays)

Santa Maria Pinquitos Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Sea Island White Flint Corn (Zea mays)

Seashore Black Rye (Secale cereale)

Seminole Pumpkin (chassa howitska) (Cucurbita moschata)

Seven Top Turnip (Brassica rapa)

Sheboygan Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Sheepnose Pimiento (Capiscum annuum)

Sibley Squash (Cucurbita maxima)

Spanish Roja Garlic (Allium sativum)

Speckled Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn (Zea mays)

Sudduth Strain Brandywine Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Hubbard Squash (Cucurbita maxima)

Tennis Ball Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Thelma Sanders Squash (Cucurbita pepo)

True Red Cranberry Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Turkey Craw Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris)

Turkey Hard Red Winter Wheat (Triticum aestivum)

Tuscarora White Corn (Zea mays)

Valencia Tomato (Lycopersicon lycopersicum)

Wenk’s Yellow Hot Pepper (Capsicum annuum)

White African Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor)

White Cap Flint Corn (Zea mays)

White Sonora Wheat (Triticum aestivum)

White Velvet Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus)

Yellow Cabbage Collard (Brassica oleracea)

Yellow-Meated Watermelon (Citrillus lanatus)

The beans, lettuces, peppers, tomatoes and wheats are very easy for saving seeds

The many okras, sorghums and squashes are a little harder but totally do-able.

Watermelons are hard to grow here, but if you can get it to grow, the good news is that no one will have a watermelon to cross pollinate your watermelon.

david

Getting Into Seed Saving - We All Started Somewhere

We have all been “beginning” seed savers at one time or another. While some have been at it their whole lives, others have come to the party much later in life; others have saved one seed, for example, tomato seed, but haven't bothered with anything else. We can become intimidated by the seemingly endless bits of information from plant to plant and, overwhelmed, through up our hands in despair and put off learning it until next year.

I think I would have done that same thing as well, except I had already scheduled a seminar with me teaching seed saving to about 50 people in 3 months. I was kind of under the gun. I knew of some seed saving, after all, I knew my grandfather had saved seeds – I well remember the kitchen table covered with newsprint and tomato seeds spread out to dry before being  put into envelopes saving for next year.

I dove into several books (see bibliography below), reading them and comparing notes and tried putting what I was reading into action as best I could. I learned that reading about seed saving had it's limits. Doing seed saving taught me much faster, although a little theory up front was necessary. It's just you don't learn how to save seeds by reading everything the world has written about seed saving. We learn by doing it. And everything is easy if you know how!

You will make mistakes. Usually, the mistakes can be eaten and that's the end of it. Some mistakes end up in the compost pile. No big deal. Accept that making mistakes is your price for admission to the club of seed savers.

Start out simple and small. Do not overwhelm yourself. Choose a vegetable from the “easy to save seeds” list. If you already put dry beans, peas or other legumes aside to be hydrated and cooked in the off season, you are already saving those seeds! The only thing you might change is to look the plants over before you harvest from them, looking for the plant that had the most, or the biggest, maybe the earliest or the latest beans. Whatever you fancy as a good visible trait in your beans. Mark the plant you find to be “the best” and save seeds from those several plants to plant next year. By doing that over and over again, you are “selecting” for that trait and by golly one day you might have a variety that is bigger, better, earlier or later to call your own!

Chose your first seed saving activity from this list:

Beans – of all kinds

Garbanzo beans

Lentils

Lettuce

Peas

Tomatoes*

Self pollination is found in about 15% of all plants. It is really very predominate in the bean family, Fabacea, the grass family, Poacea – except for corn which is a plant unto its self. Some plants in the sunflower family, Asteraceae, do self-pollinate, others cross. Count on lettuce to always self but other sunflowerish plants to self only as a last resort.

Start with the self-pollinators as they are the easiest. You really have nothing to do but save the seeds! But what does that mean?

Seeds always come after the plant has flowered – in fact, as far as the plant is concerned, producing flowers, which then produce the seeds, is what it's all about. There is a bevy of jokes of poor taste here, but I'll leave it to your imagination. You never see lettuce flowers because your whole gardening career is to eat it before it bolts. (Remember the term, “gone to seed?” Like a referral to a once prosperous town that has fallen on hard times, could be said “It's just went to seed” as a derisive comment – our 'job' as gardeners is to get rid of those plants before they've gone to seed.) We've stood the traditional garden model on it's head.

(Working in my garden one day, in an area full of plants that had “gone to seed” - a man from the street called to me, “Is this your garden?” I said it was. Pointing to all the plants that were in various stages past prime eating time, “If this was my garden, I shoot myself!” because he was measuring it by a different metric. I saw seeds, he saw overgrown, tough plants.)

I have always believed that persistence and patience were the golden keys to gardening – and I think it's even more true for seed savers.

I'll go into specifics in later posts, but for right now I would like you to do two things. I'd like you to buy a notebook – or create a Word document – in which to track your seed saving experiences. I want you to be able to track your seeds through a couple of generations to see how well you are doing – or if it's just not happening for you, and I'd like to you read part of ONE book listed below. Lettuce season for us is about over – if you have one variety of lettuce you love, let one or two plants go to seed – just by leaving them alone – if they are isolated to where you can cut down – or eliminate – the water, all the better. You will see the flowers fade and, as the plant becomes ever less attractive, you'll begin to see little cups – where the flowers once were – full of seeds – maybe 10 to 20 seeds in each one. Viola! You have saved seeds! You'll need to make sure they are completely dry and then store them – cool, dark and dry – for next season.  More on that too!

If you have no lettuce left, get some beans in the ground and follow my advice above about saving the seeds that are more like what you want. I'll discuss how to store them in an upcoming blog (easy-peasy)! 

david 

* observe your tomato flowers as they first open: do the inner parts of the tomato flower extend beyond the flower's tip? If so, you have a variety that can be pollinated by insects and is therefore not a “self-pollinating” tomato. This is more common in the old varieties of tomatoes, sadly, usually the ones you most want to save.

Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History,Weaver, William Woys ©1997, Henry Holt It is now out of print and getting a copy can be hellish (NEWSFLASH: IT IS BACK IN PRINT!!!) It is a wonderful book that needs to be put back in print because the research he put into the book makes this to be the most informative books on heirloom vegetables that has ever been published. Mother Earth News has the entire book on a CD – you can find it on their website – of course that's not a book, but you will have the data.

A Seed Saving Guide for Gardeners and Farmers, Organic Seed Alliance © 2010 OSA This publication is a free download from organicseedalliance.org. It is a succinct guide with few frills but a great deal of good data. A free publication that is worth paying for! Organic Seed Alliance is a non-profit relying on contributions to fight the invasion of hybrids and GMO seeds in our lives. I suggest throwing a donation their way as they deserve it.

Breed Your Won Vegetable Varieties, Deppe, Carol © 2000, Chelsea Green Publishing The subtitle gets more to our point: The Gardeners' and Farmers Guide to Plant Breeding and Seed Saving, I had bought this book about three years ago and, for whatever reason, I ignored it. In preparing to teach seed saving one more time,, the subtitle pulled me in: Suddenly, it was a different book. She is very, very funny and her stories of seed saving are heart warming; I felt I had met a kindred spirit – I want to drive to Oregon and 'shoot the compost' about seeds over a brew or tea or whatever she's having. 

These are the three I found the best.  Deppe's book (Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) starts out with stuff I still do not understand, but half way through, the whole book changes into the  best stuff written about saving seeds and it is easily assimilated.  

When I teach seed saving the OSA guide is the one I recommend because it is free and, at 35 pages, it is always right on point.

Heirloom Seeds, One Story

The large container goes back to the Pineschi
family, the large jar is for SLOLA and the small
jar is mine to plant!  Seeds are abundant! 

There are seeds and seed stories everywhere. Everyone has a relationship to seeds whether they own it or not, because the history of humans and human civilizations are intertwined so deeply, over so many hundreds of years, has made it so. Today's industrial agriculture obfuscates that which once was an intimate relationship into a commodity that we buy, sell, grown with poison and produced with the cheapest means to get to market.

But seed savers everywhere, want to hold the seed and know the story behind the seed – how did it come to be here? And it is the story that makes heirloom seeds “Heirlooms.” There are many old seeds – seeds of varieties that have been around for 100 years or more – but they aren't “heirlooms” without a story.

This is about a seed with a story. I don't know how old this variety is, but the story is good enough for the seed to be called an heirloom and the story seems to point to the fact that it is indeed an heirloom. It's starts out with a dental appointment.

My dental hygienist is married to a dentist. She sees me three or four times a year, if I'm lucky, he sees me three or four times a decade. Professionally at least. So this was one of those professional encounters where I get the question “are you numb yet?” I'm slow about getting numb. He has some stuff in my mouth and my hygienist drops by to say hi, and says to her husband, “David has started a seed library to save old seeds...” And the dentist gets very excited!

It turns out that his grandmother (great-grandmother?) had given him some seeds when he had graduated dental school and was moving to Los Angeles to set up his practice. He was charged with these bean seeds as they were the family bean. He had them for over fifteen years and was not so successful in growing enough to keep the seeds supply healthy and he asked if I would help keep his family bean alive. Of course I would! That's what being a seed savior is all about!

Within a week, I was given an envelope of about 55 seeds of a bean. They were small seeds and I was told they were old. I planted all that I had and presently had a crop of four plants – not a lot of beans. Once the plants were growing and the leaves were distinct, I realized this was not a common bean – Phaseolus vulgaris. And the beans themselves were too long as well. A little research and I figured I had Vigna unguiculata, a close relative, and edible, but not the common bean. It took more time to figure out how to pronounce “unguiculata” than it did to find the correct binomial for it.

This species is called 'cowpea' probably because they were used for forage for animals as well as human consumption. Cultivated cowpeas are known by the common names black-eyed pea, southern pea, yardlong bean, and crowder pea. Fairly common – and their ability to grow in sandy soil makes them a desirable species to have in our storage. They were domesticated in Africa and are one of the oldest crops to be farmed and not an American bean – like Phaseolus vulgaris, which is what one might suspect without digging into the history of beans. A second domestication event probably occurred in Asia, before they spread into Europe and the Americas.

Our 'cowpea' came from Italy and we call it the Pineschi Family Bean in deference to Dr. Pineschi and his wife that brought this bean to my attention. You can check this productive bean out from the Seed Library when we restock our summer seeds in March. It is a vigorous climber and a good producer of 10 to 12 inch long slender pods. Pick young pods, in the 10 to 12 range and just steam them. I, of course, add butter. Delicious!