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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Locavore seed-saving is a good idea
  • Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 07:57:09 -0600


Locavore seed-saving is a good idea
Sustainable gardening family evolves to the next logical step
By DR. BOB RANDALL Urban Harvest
Sept. 25, 2009, 12:21PM
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/gardening/urbanharvest/6633247.html

For decades now, our family has been growing nearly all the vegetables,
herbs, and fruit we eat on a city lot of about 3/10th acre. What little we
don't grow, we buy at the Farmers' Market. So we think of ourselves as fairly
sustainable while also having a healthy and very delicious diet.

People who eat from local production are now called "locavores." And thanks
largely to the growth of farmers' markets, there are an increasing number of
them around our area and nationally. But how sustainable is this approach?
Certainly, even local farms use many inputs such as petroleum that are not
renewable, and so do most market customers in driving to get their food.

Home production is a more difficult issue. How much of it depends on water
treated and distributed by cities using fossil fuels? How sustainable are
soil practices like the use of tillers? Where does the fertilizer come from?
And especially where do the seeds come from?

For many years, my spouse and I have been trying to reduce the use of outside
inputs in our food production. We stopped using food pesticides in 1985 and
because of raised beds and native mulches ended tilling in 1987. We have
gradually improved the soil by using quality organic mulches, and thus have
reduced fertilizer needs. And in 2001 we added 4800 gallons of rainwater
cisterns, and have thus reduced our need for city water a lot.

About a year ago, we realized that seeds were the last remaining non-locavore
element in our produce food supply. So we began a deliberate program to
replace seeds we purchase with seeds we grow. We were already using mostly
locally produced fruit trees, and grew many of our own seeds. In seeds, we
grew most of our peas and beans, all of our squashes and garlic, our
collards, radishes, okra, and some of our tomatoes. But the rest were
purchased from distant states and even Canada. Moreover, several seeds we
used were hybrids that could not be accurately reproduced even if we chose.

We started by taking a close look at what foods we grew whose seeds we didn't
grow. Roughly, they fell into three categories:

-- seeds like cucumbers whose seeds would be easy to grow but we don't bother
to;

-- seeds like carrots we could grow, but it would be difficult; and

-- seeds we could not reproduce accurately because they are hybrids. These
hybrid sweet peppers, melons, tomatoes, eggplants and sweet corn we resolved
to find adequate replacements for first.

Here is our 2009 report:

Briefly, we had spectacular success with the watermelons, corn, eggplants,
tomatoes and peppers. And failed on cantaloupes.

We ordered seed from Seed Savers Exchange and from Southern Exposure Seed
Exchange. We also ordered from Seed Savers the bible of vegetable seed
saving, Seed to Seed, 2nd edition by Susan Ashworth.

Instead of the usual hybrid sweet corn varieties, we tried Stowell's
Evergreen. Instead of the usual hybrid bell and Italian sweet peppers, we
ordered several open-pollinated types: Bull-nose, Buran, Golden Treasure,
Napoleon Sweet, Sheepnose Pimento, Tollies Sweet, Orange Bell, and Alma
Paprika. Instead of the hybrid eggplant, we grew one of our old favorites,
Louisiana Long Green. And instead of the hybrid tomatoes, we tried Amish
Paste, Beam's Yellow Pear, Eva's Purple Ball, Martina's Roma OG, Large Red
Cherry, Rose, and Long Tom.

All of these did very well and were delicious. The sweet corn was the best
non-hybrid we have eaten, productive, and pest-free. The eggplants and
peppers have provided the most productive harvests seen by us in years, with
the peppers amazingly bearing well all summer. The tomatoes also did well --
productive, pest- and disease-free, and very tasty.

We also tried non-hybrid melons. Our efforts to replace the No. 1-rated
reliable and delicious Ambrosia hybrid cantaloupe unhappily failed miserably.
But we had the best watermelon production in years from Seed Savers'
delicious Blacktail Mountain.

Bob Randall, Ph.D. is the retired co-founder of Urban Harvest and is author
of Year Round Vegetables, Fruits and Flowers for Metro-Houston. Contact him
at BobInTheGarden@urbanharvest.org. Urban Harvest produces this column. Learn
about gardening classes, community and school gardens, farmers' markets,
organic landscaping and more at www.urbanharvest.org.




  • [Livingontheland] Locavore seed-saving is a good idea, Tradingpost, 09/27/2009

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