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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] "A small seed company is saving a precious plant heritage"
  • Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:00:19 -0600


Mother Earth News
Conversations with Mother
Jan./Feb. 1988
http://www.saveseeds.org/biography/blum/conversation_with_mother.htm

"A small seed company is saving a precious plant heritage"
by Sara Pacher

The southern Idaho mountains are brown in August. The wagon tracks of those
who took the Oregon Trail west so many years ago are still visible as they
tumble over an escarpment to the tree-lined waters of Moore's Creek near
Boise. Clear blue skies contrast brightly with the barren hills as the
dusty gravel road forks again, bringing me to the entrance of a small, lush
cove. Past the gate, a poppy-strewn path leads up a slight incline. On the
left, a gushing little stream rushes down to the road. Climbing the hill on
the right, colorful vegetables and fruit in pretty, complementary patterns
peek through rich, green leaves of varying hues. Out of the gardens emerge
two small, attractive buildings, where a wooden sign tells me I've indeed
arrived at Seeds Blüm (pronounced "Bloom"), a sanctuary for heirloom
seeds that otherwise might disappear from the planet.

Jan Blüm ushers me over herb-framed flagstones into a combination
kitchen-dining room-office. The tantalizing scent of simmering beans
replaces the flower-filled air outside. Blue glass jars of dried legumes
and canned fruits and vegetables line the kitchen shelves. We take a quick
tour of the gardens and buildings, where a staff of five other women is
germinating seeds, filling orders and preparing to put out the 1988 edition
of the six-year-old company's always delightful seed catalogue.

During this short tour, it becomes apparent to me that Jan Blüm has taken
on a gargantuan task - that of preserving, judging, propagating and
marketing millions of heirloom seeds, while efficiently managing a rapidly
expanding business. We return to the kitchen, and - as Karla, Blüm's
business partner and talented one-woman construction crew, efficiently
prepares a bean burrito lunch - I ask Jan how she had dared to even begin
this undertaking.

Blüm: I grew up in a central California farming community. Though my
parents were professionals, they both grew up on farms. They always had a
big garden, and my mother kept a fabulous lawn - not a weed in it. I
remember in the second grade being thrilled at planting things, but
basically, as a kid, I wasn't truly interested in gardening. I wanted to do
something with my life, not spend it weeding a lawn. After all, a yard may
look pretty, but when I died, who was going to care? I pretty much turned
my back on that. I married a minister and did a lot of work with people.

Then, during the back-to-the-land movement in the early '70s, I was living
in Phoenix and got this desire to move to the country - to the wilderness.
Instead, we moved to Los Angeles, which was anything but! After a year
there, we heard of a landowner in Idaho who was looking for a caretaker for
his 600 acres with creek and pine trees. Who could turn that down?
Eventually, we bought some land and started building a house. So that's how
we ended up here. It was a compromise. My husband liked university towns; I
wanted to live in the wilderness. This was close enough to Boise for him
and almost far enough out for me.

MOTHER: Was it all you expected?

Blüm: As I'm sure thousands of people have found out, there are huge
psychological adjustments in moving from the city to the country, but I
didn't know that at first. It took about a year before I said, this is for
real, kiddo! So why are you here, and what are you going to do? It seemed
logical to grow my own food.

At first, I gardened with a neighbor. Then I decided to raise a garden by
myself, and it was a disaster. I wonder how people ever get past that first
year or two of gardening. It looks so easy, and yet absolutely everything
can go wrong. But I was intrigued by the fact that my neighbor got his plot
to work, and I started paying close attention to what he was doing.
Meanwhile, he was filling my head with how the old varieties were
disappearing and how hybrids were making up more and more of our food
supply. "Vegetables don't taste the same anymore," he said. Then he gave me
the descendants of some seeds he had been given as a wedding present in the
1920s - which was probably the smartest thing he could have done, because I
grew them and saw for myself how neat they were. (Editor's Note: These are
now listed in the catalog as Large Royal Kidney beans.)

Also, I was teaching vegetarian cooking classes, and so many people would
ask, "What do you eat?" To help explain, I filled glass jars with all kinds
of grains and beans for displays around the classroom. I didn't dismiss
vegetables, but grains and beans, being dry were easier. It soon occurred
to me that there must be hundreds of grain and bean varieties out there, so
- in order to fill up my jars - I sought out people I could trade seeds
with.

Sure enough, I got about 700 or 800 different kinds of beans and started
growing them all on the hill out there, along with 300 or 400 different
kinds of tomatoes - and I was a goner! I wondered, why don't I see these in
the catalogues. Why aren't people buying these in the grocery stores? When
this super-big sauce tomato is available, why do we mess around with these
little dinky-dorf things? I couldn't understand it, so I sent off for all
the seed catalogues. I would order seeds, grow them and think, now, this
one, this one and this one were the good ones, and I would try to order
them the next year, and - just as my neighbor said - they would have been
replaced by hybrids.

Then I started reading about genetic erosion and all the politics that
contribute to it. I wanted all those neat varieties that were being lost,
and - since I'm a cause-oriented person - I started thinking, I've got to
do something. I wrote people who were involved in saving old varieties -
Kent Whealey, John Withee, Lawrence Hill in England - and offered to work
for them for a year. I wrote to this fabulous farmer, Edward Lowden, up in
Ontario, who introduced a lot of interesting varieties before he passed
away. I thought I could learn a lot from some of these people and could do
something for them at the same time. Without exception, they all wrote back
and said, "Do something where you are. We don't need you, but you can do
something." But what was I going to do?

PHOTO OF JAN BLüM IN THE GARDEN TAKING NOTES OF THE SPINACH TRIALS AT
SEEDS BLüMMeanwhile, the local newspaper wrote an article about our
garden, because it was beautiful, and the piece got picked up by United
Press and sent all over the country - which I didn't know until I started
getting phone calls from people who wanted to trade some seeds with me.
Then I went to work for Redwood City Seeds in California for a short stint.
People there said, "You should start a seed company. Anybody who grows 800
kinds of beans and 400 kinds of tomatoes is destined to start a seed
company. You're just not seeing it. You're blind."

"I'm not a botanist," I replied. "I don't like business. I want to garden,
and if I start a seed company, I'll be running the business, not
gardening." But the idea stayed with me. And no matter where I went, people
loved the varieties I'd collected. It seemed that I could generate
enthusiasm. I thought, maybe it's because I'm such a fanatic gardener. I do
know what gardeners want. Maybe I know better than somebody who's a
botanist or a business person.

So just for the heck of it, I decided to write a catalogue. I wasn't going
to publish it; I was just going to write it, because I like to write, too.
It took me three months, and I just played - had a blast! Halfway through,
I knew I was going to start a seed company, and that it would become my
passion. The idea brought everything together for me. I could make a
difference. I could probably make a living doing it. I could give people
something that was beautiful as well as meaningful, and I could save old
varieties. I could bring my gardening and writing and cooking together.

MOTHER: When did you actually start Seeds Blum?

Blüm: The winter of 1981-1982.

MOTHER: And you lost your husband somewhere along the way?

Blüm: Actually, the very first year. I think when I started the business
it just pointed out some of the weaknesses in our relationship. It was time
to change, so we did. But we're still very good friends. After he left, I
remember telling him how I felt about Seeds Blüm at the time: "I feel
like a little tugboat bobbing up and down in the middle of the ocean, and
all these big steamers are going by, and they don't even see me, much less
the danger of waves they create. If I can just keep from capsizing, much
less get to the other side, I'll feel good."

Now I realize I am a business woman at heart. I like turning people on to
things - and that's salesmanship. On the other hand, I don't want Seeds
Blum to become monolithic. There are dangers either way.

MOTHER: Yet, you're expanding rapidly.

Blüm: Every year the business has tripled. We aren't just a seed company.
We're really a service company, and though folks sometimes have to wait for
letters, we eventually answer all our mail. People are very patient with
us, and they send us seeds. It's like Christmas all year round! We've
gotten most of our varieties from our customers - a fact that pleases me to
no end, because it means they trust us to keep the varieties going. We make
a special effort to give them the opportunity to be our Seed Grower for
that variety. After all, they've grown it for maybe 30 years, so they
obviously can do it. If they're too elderly, too busy or don't have enough
space, then they give us the go-ahead, and we give the seeds to another
grower. We don't just take the seeds and say "thank you very much" and then
go on our way.

MOTHER: How do you test the seeds you receive?

Blüm: Oftentimes they go out in the Trial Garden Program which involves
gardeners all over the country raising them. Then we have a network of Seed
Guardians and a network of Seed Multipliers.

MOTHER: What do they do?

Blüm: Seed Guardians make a commitment to grow a certain variety year
after year. Maybe a 74-year-old fellow in Massachusetts says, "I don't have
the land or the energy to grow seeds for you, but I have this old bean
variety. I'll register it with you as a Seed Guardian." As long as that
gentleman is alive, that variety is renewed every year. Even though we
presently have some significant gaps, our goal is to have several Seed
Guardians for each variety.

Basically, we're doing the work that the National Seed Storage Lab in
Colorado can't get the funding to do. They've done a good job with the
limited amount of money they have, but they have a terrible time growing
out all of the varieties that they have in storage. After 17 years, some
varieties are still in storage. The Seed Guardian program, however, is
creating a back yard seed bank all across the country which consists of
people who are growing varieties out every single year. It's slow work.
It's not going to happen overnight, but it's very exciting that it's
happening at all. And it's happening more and more as people are realizing
they can make a difference. They can feel comfortable growing one variety
every year and keeping it pure.

It's not a whole lot of work for any one individual, but it's a huge
contribution, because if you get 30,000 people, that's 30,000 varieties!

Of course, sometimes we receive such a small sample of seed that we don't
have enough to put in the Trial Garden Program. When that happens, we send
it to a Seed Multiplier, who will increase it, so that we can send it out
to, say, 50 people in different parts of the country. They can test it, and
we can listen to what they say. We do a lot of trials in our gardens, too.
I'm currently looking for a full-time gardener, and if we find the right
person, we'll do massive trials here.

MOTHER: What kind of business arrangement do you make with Seed
Multipliers, Seed Guardians and your other associates?

Blüm: The Guardians and Multipliers are all volunteers. The Seed Growers
are paid according to the labor involved in the growing of each kind of
seed - the prices vary. We still buy a few seeds from some commercial seed
houses, which is by far the cheapest way to go. In fact, we'd do much
better financially if we bought everything from commercial seed houses and
just acted as a repackager - which is what the majority of small seed
companies do. When we don't have enough growers and have to buy seeds
commercially, we try to choose a company that we feel comfortable with.
We're working toward a 100% grower network, but in the meantime, we
prioritize the varieties that are most important.

MOTHER: How do you decide that?

Blüm: We pick the heirloom varieties that you can't get anymore of and
that are in danger of extinction. They can't sit around for 10 years
waiting for us to get the whole thing covered, because in 10 years they're
not going to be here. That's our first priority. Our second priority is to
find a grower who wants to take on a variety. Because we have so many small
growers, we try to find a vegetable that they like to eat. That way, they
might harvest half the row for their own use, and let the other half go to
seed. So when we found a grower who, for example, loves the Scarlet Keeper,
which is not available commercially anymore, we asked him to grow that
variety for us.

MOTHER: Is it just a coincidence that you have all female employees?

Blüm: Partly. I asked a fellow to come be our gardener at one point. In
fact, we tried out a couple of guys. However, I like to see women doing
things they want to do, and I'm really proud of the fact that we, as women,
can be doing this so successfully.

We are, for example, international now. Our catalogue goes not only all
over this country and Canada, but also to places like England, Ireland,
Australia and Denmark. We get letters that say, "I hope you know that I got
only two hours of sleep last night because your catalogue came in the mail
yesterday." It's really fun to get that kind of feedback. How can I make
the catalogue more sober when people say things like that? Anything can be
work or fun according to your attitude. Whether I'm selecting seeds or
raising a garden, I want to enjoy myself, and I assume a lot of other
people do too.

MOTHER: You mentioned that your first garden was a disaster. What were some
of the mistakes you made?

Blüm: I didn't thin. I didn't weed soon enough. I thought you had to
wait, for goodness sakes, until you could really see the weeds. I'd let
them get big, and then something would happen. Maybe I wanted to go
water-skiing that weekend. I didn't realize that you have to get those
weeds out of there! Now we weed three times during the summer, and that's
basically it. By weeding real early in the season, you don't have to work
so hard again. I didn't know that, so things got overcrowded.

But - beyond the varieties, beyond everything that you can do - healthy
soil is the basis. If you get disease problems or pest problems, it's
probably because you're not feeding your plants right - or even planting
them at the right time. You can't do anything more important than planting
when it's time and building the soil. We now understand that we are a
combination of what we eat and how we exercise. That idea just hasn't moved
out into the garden yet, and plants can't jog. We have to do so many things
for them.

Here, for example, most of the soil is decomposed granite, so we've had to
build our own earth; a lot of leaves, a lot of manure and a lot of old,
old, old sawdust for organic matter. And then I put moss in the soil. You
saw the compost piles; I've used everything that I could get my hands on.

One of the biggest seed-saving mistakes I made early on was I wouldn't
limit myself. I wanted to grow everything. Even though I didn't know how to
protect my seeds against cross-pollination, I'd plant five different kinds
of carrots. I'd end up with five varieties all going to flower at the same
time, none of which I could save because they were all crossing madly. If
I'd been smart about it, I would have grown one, and I would have had one.
As it was, I had none. I still struggle with that. Actually, I'm very






  • [Livingontheland] "A small seed company is saving a precious plant heritage", TradingPostPaul, 06/16/2007

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