Seed Vaults

For about twenty years, I've been laughing at people that buy their "heirloom seeds" from a catalog every year. I don't think that they get the concept. I initially learned the idea from a high school teacher that shared my interest in breeding plants. He learned gardening from his grandmother who was Cherokee. Despite the fact that he taught in a town that had only a couple of thousand people, I know of three of his students that went to the National Science Fair with their projects. Catalog seed is fine, but part of the process is improving the stock in your own growing conditions. The other part is passing that knowledge down. I respect specialists, but the people that I really appreciate are people that have the knowledge and experience to do a lot of critical things for themselves.

Every August I buy 2 bushel baskets of green chile peppers from a family owned small farm near where I live. It's organic and they only use seeds from the previous years plants. They've been growing this way for over a hundred years. They are the most flavorful green chiles I've ever eaten.

It is a perfectly reasonable way to buy diversity. The whole meaning of "heirloom" is something of value that is passed down through your family or heirs. It is a bonus that they are open pollinated so that you can save the seed for next year, which is why they are prized by doomsday preppers. The fine point to their value, is the selection process for saving the seed instead of buying it, is that it fine tunes the genetics to the soil, climate, and resistance to pests and disease that are specific to your garden. There is a lot to the concept that is very rewarding to delve into. I don't have a problem with F1 hybrids, GMOs, or clones but each scheme has it's drawbacks. Open pollinated varieties have traits that are hard to combine with the traits that are needed for cultivars that are commercially grown and shipped, plus the option of tweaking those varieties yourself. Think of that as plant breeding for hobbyists.

Something to think about is if you save seeds, you can trade seeds - in person and by mail. Out here this is huge and fun!

I donated to a seed bank, back in college.

It was OK. I couldn't get the nurse to help, though, I thought that was rude.