Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

Organic Farmers Using Heirloom Seeds to Produce Superior Crops
Seed crossings bring back old traits for organic farmers
Today's altered varieties grow poorly in natural soils
http://www.organicconsumers.org/organic/heirloom090204.cfm
By Deborah K. Rich  August 28, 2004

What if organic gardeners and farmers could plant fruits and vegetables
suited for life without chemicals? What if organic growers had access to
varieties naturally resistant to diseases, to varieties with cold tolerance
and with large leaf canopies to shade out weeds?

<<<I don't know about American farmers but we here have a harsh climate 
unsuitable for many crops. We learned long ago that we could in a few 
seasons breed seeds that were suitable to our own circumstances. We would 
buy several varieties of sweet corn seed from which we grew a few hundred 
plants. A mere handful survived and we did not eat sweet corn the first 
year. We had maybe 50 viable kernels for the next year and these were all 
planted. To make a long story short, it took 3-4 years to get reliable 
sweetcorn growing without protection outside. And we had to do the same with 
most things, flax, tomatoes, runnerbeans and so on.

But by ruthlessly selecting great results can be had. Most of our potato 
growing neighbors spray against "blight" at least once a week and often 
still loose their complete crop when cold and damp conditions develop (which 
is often). We have never sprayed and we have for at least 15 years had a 
very good crop of potatoes that keep without chemicals until the next crop 
comes in. With potatoes as with many things our own kept seed potatoes 
produce easily double compared to fresh bought in seed.
John