IF YOU’VE EVER SAVED SEED for a number of years running, you may notice that over time, the plant makes itself increasingly at home—and performs better. Or perhaps a friend raves about “his” version of a particular tomato or squash or other open-pollinated crop, which does indeed seem “better” in some way. But why? Lately I’ve become fascinated by such signs of adaptation, and in this age of local-centrism, the idea of “local heirlooms” seems very timely. I asked my across-the-river neighbor Ken Greene, co-founder of Hudson Valley Seed Library, to teach me more—plus you can win some seeds, or best of all: come join me and Ken and others March 23, when we talk seed at a special event.
First, let’s do a little learning on the topic of local as it applies to heirloom seeds. I loved where the conversation led in my Q&A with Ken:
Q. “Local heirlooms” is a primary message, and mission, of Hudson Valley Seed Library. Explain.
A. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder and taste is on the tongue of the eater, defining the term “local heirloom” is in the hands of the gardener. Most seeds have traveled more miles than any of us will in our lifetimes. Very few of the varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers that we love originally came from the places where we live. Many favorites, like tomatoes, originated in warm, sunny places like Central and South America. As the seeds traveled to new places, met new people with their own ideas of flavor, beauty, and use, they changed.
So local does not mean native, and heirloom does not mean set in stone.
For the Seed Library, a local heirloom means a variety that is open-pollinated (as opposed to hybrid or GMO) that has passed through many hands but has been in one area long enough to have changed to adapt in some way to its newest home. This might mean many generations in one community, or three or more successful seasons with one person.
A local heirloom is a variety that has co-evolved with us and landed in a garden or on a farm where it is thriving. But that is not the end of that seed’s story. Our hope is that our seeds, even the local heirlooms, will continue their wandering ways, discover new places, be changed and exchanged by new hands, and in turn change the lives of the people who grow them.
Q. How about some example of “local heirlooms” you’re especially enthusiastic about—and what if I’m outside the Northeast, where you are growing seed?
A. Our local heirlooms come from individuals and families all over the Northeast as well as from seed exchanges and other seed companies all over the world. We grow them on our farm to see how they do in our region. We want to see firsthand if they are beautiful, delicious, and healthy—and can deal with our short growing season, temperature swings, hot humid summers, and local pests and diseases. We also want to know if they are consistent enough to offer in our catalog or if they need further selection and improvement to do well in our region.
Some of our varieties may be familiar to heirloom gardeners everywhere, while others are unique or rare varieties that have never been commercially available. Because we are selecting for a cooler climate, anyone warmer than us will be successful with our seeds and most people colder than us (we even have Alaskan gardeners who grow with us!) will be happy with our selections. The main difference would be their planting dates, earlier or later than ours.
Q. Can you cite some specific “local heirlooms”?
A. A few of my favorite rare, unique, or just plain awesome local heirlooms we offer:
‘piracicaba’ broccoli: a far-flung local heirloom:
WHILE THERE is big corporate and public money being poured into creating hybrids and GMO seeds for “conventional” farmers, less work is being done for open-pollinated varieties for organic growers. Organic home growers are our focus. And that’s who this amazing broccoli called ‘Piracicaba’ is for. [That's its unfolded Seed Library "art pack" packet, up top.] Initially bred in Brazil, this cut-and-come-again broccoli is the perfect fit for becoming a local in the Northeast because of its tolerance for our hot summers. Instead of only getting one harvest of one broccoli head per plant, Piracicaba continually produces multiple sweet shoots of loose florets from spring through summer and into fall. It’s a perfect variety for gardeners who want fresh broccoli every day.
‘panther’ soybean: exotic but easy to grow:
SOMETIMES FEAR of growing from seed is fear of the unknown. More and more eaters are falling in love with the edamame appetizer they order at a sushi restaurant, but don’t realize they can grow it in their own gardens. It just sounds too exotic. But if you can grow bush beans (you can!) you can grow soybeans (really!) like ‘Panther’ edamame. Soybeans, just like other leguminous seeds can be direct sown. That means you don’t have to start them early or indoors, just put the seeds in the ground in the spring. By mid-August you’ll be harvesting buckets of the fuzzy green pods. Just steam, salt, and eat!
‘stone ridge’ tomato: deliciously salacious
THE SEEDS OF ‘Stone Ridge’ tomato were donated by Larry Fuscher, a local gardener. We grew 25 plants the first year to trial them. We found a diversity of traits, which is common for heirlooms being grown in dense gardens. So I wrote to Larry to get a better description of what the tomato should look like. He sent me a deliciously salacious email that compared the tomatoes, in more ways than one, to some people’s amplest body parts. Although it made me blush, by the time I was done reading the description I knew what characteristics to select for to get the tomato back to its ideal Venus de Milo form. It took us another few years of growing and selection before we offered this very unique local heirloom in our catalog. We still keep in touch with Larry and are grateful that he allows us to continually embellish both his tomato and its seed story.
A few other 2013 varieties of note: ‘Upstate Oxheart’: Big tomato, big love. ‘Flashback’ Calendula: A gorgeous Frank Morton (Wild Garden Seed Company) creation. ‘Gift’ Zinnia: A scarlet beauty.
march 23 with me, seed library, turtle tree:
shop, learn, connect
JOIN ME for an afternoon of seed-shopping, learning and fun on Saturday, March 23, in Copake, New York, 2:30-5:30 PM; ticket sales to benefit a local greening and preservation organization.
“Heirloom Gardening From Seed to Seed:” Ken Greene showcases our Northeast gardening heritage through elegant, humorous, and telling images from the Seed Library’s collection of antique and vintage seed catalogs, seed packs, and ephemera 1850s-1960s. Moving from history into the present, we’ll learn about easy, beautiful, and tasty heirloom varieties to grow at home. Along the way, Ken will offer simple tips for growing, harvesting, and saving seed.
Seed from Hudson Valley Seed Library and from Turtle Tree Seed—two nationally prominent but also local companies—will be for sale, and experts from both (plus me!) will be on hand to answer gardening questions before the talk and after, and to showcase seed-starting tactics and tricks. Come with your shopping list, and your questions; bring the family! Tickets here.
how to win seed library membership and seeds
I’VE PURCHASED THREE MEMBERSHIPS in Hudson Valley Seed Library, plus an assortment of some of the “local heirloom” seeds they sell, to share with you. To enter and win the memberships and seeds, simply comment below, answering this question:
Is there some seed that you or a family member or friend saves that you have a sentimental attachment to? Tell us about it. Or if not, is there an heirloom (open-pollinated) variety you order grow every year?
Feeling shy, or have no answer you want to share right now? Just say, “Count me in” or the equivalent, and you’ll be entered in the drawing.
Winners will be drawn at random after entries close at midnight Wednesday, January 16. Good luck to all!
Photo of Ken up top, courtesy of the Open Sesame film project; Ken’s at 2:10 in Open Sesame’s upcoming film’s trailer video below:
(Disclaimer: Seed Library is a seasonal advertiser on A Way to Garden, but our friendship precedes the ads. Others among my favorite seed companies can be found on my Resource Links page here.)
I save seed of an OP tomato called ‘Rose’. It’s won the family taste test for years and puts on a hefty crop of uniform, big pink fruit. ‘Rose’ is tastier and more reliable than other heirlooms including ‘Brandywine’ Sudduth strain.
I grow Matt’s Wild Cherry every year- it’s our fav family heirloom!
New at this but am only planting organic heirlooms this. We will see how it goes!
Count me in.
Green bean seeds that have been passed down by my great grandmother Jenny.
Count me in. I would love to start a tradition of passing down seeds. And on a side note I adore Hudson Valley’s artist seed packs.
Cypress vine and count me in , thanks
please count me in.
please, please – count me in – thank you
I love saving Milkweed seeds! Count me in!
I don’t grow vegetables right now, but I love Hudson Valley Seed Library and their beautiful packaging. I give them as gifts to my friends who do grow veggies. They’re the perfect thing for these artistic gardeners! Thanks for this opportunity. Just ordered Backyard Parables. Can’t wait to read it!
Half runner green bean seeds that my grandpa passed to me in 1978 for my first garden. They were passed to him by his mother (from N. Carolina). They now grow in Ohio every year and are delicious!
I have enjoyed sweet marigolds from seed saved by my dear Auntie from years and years ago…
Count me in!
Please oh please count me in!
My dad judiciously hordes seeds from the “original German” strain of summer savory that his grandparents brought with them to the US. He had trouble starting it for a few years and went back to the family farm to harvest them for years. Now he has some growing in his garden and saves seeds every year. This year he finally deemed be proficient enough to get some!
Last year is the first year that I attempted to save seeds. I have saved a variety of hot pepper seeds (I grew 30 different types last year. Some succussfully some not so much) from my favorite plants that I grew last summer. I will be starting them shortly and hopfully will have some success.
Several years ago a neighbor gave me some Oxheart seeds (he called them Oxyhearts); he had been given some of their seeds by an old Polish immigrant, who brought them with him from Poland. My neighbor saved his seeds each year, and I grew them for several years. They produced fairly small tomatoes — not like the three-pounders on the HVSL site — but tasty. Then my sister-in-law sent me a small packet of Crnkovic tomato seeds she had saved (in exchange for some Agastache foeniculum seeds I had saved and sent her), and I fell in love with this Yugoslavian heirloom. Delicious mild flavor, low acidity, good texture; my mouth is watering right now thinking of them! Please count me in….
Count me in! My husband and I will be sharing our first summer as retired people! I am planning a perennial vegetable and fruit garden and garden greenhouse studio. I’ve always had rhubarb. Last year I put in thornless blackberries and new strawberries, and added another Meyer lemon to the one I already had and a grapefruit and lime tree. This year I’m adding asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes. The wonderful cut and grow broccoli sounds wonderful!
I don’t really have a saved or sentimental favorite (I’m a fairly new gardener). But I did discover something this year that I know I will *never* be without in my garden again – lettuce leaf basil. I had some pesto in the freezer, a batch made from the home grown lettuce leaf basil, and a batch from (what I used to think was wonderful) Farmer’s Market basil. Recently tried them both, and the difference was astounding – this basil is just so much better than anything else I have ever encountered. And to think I picked the seed pakcet up on clearance for ten cents!! This one will forever have a place in my garden. :)
Count me in, please.
I’m a new gardener, but I grew a late-season crop of Piracicaba broccoli last fall, and it was fantastically tasty. I’m excited to plant it earlier this year and try to grow enough to blanch and freeze for next winter as well as enough to eat. (This past fall, I only got a handful of florets before the snow came.)
We love Striped Roman Emperor tomatoes and grow them every year. Beautiful yellow, orange and red streaks on large Roma-type fruits and deep, cherry-red flesh. Great for fresh slicing with basil and pomegranate molasses and wonderful for canning or oven roasting to freeze. Just found your blog and love it!
Not necessarily a seed but I have received divisions of my great-grandmother’s comfrey plants. I tell friends that when they peek up from the soil, it’s like my great-grandmother waving at me. Interested to look into the Hudson Seed library as I live not too far away. Thanks!
We grew so much from the Hudson Valley Seed Library last year in NYU’s Community Agriculture Club garden. I think banana melon was the most exciting (but not the most successful… haha) thing we tried last year. The tomatoes and eggplant did so well too!
i don’t actually save the seed, but the little patch of wild blackberry keeps reseeding itself. nasty thorns, but it produces the tastiest berries, even in the fog!
count me in! For non edibles, I like saving zinnia seeds or mexican sunflower seeds.
We love Brandywine tomatoes and order the seeds to grow them every year. We used to live near Brandywine valley in PA, so we like the local connection (even though we’re now in upstate NY).
Count me in.
I always save seed, but dont always remember where I have safely hidden them!
Count me in, please.
count me in please
This is so timely for me! For this first time this year I saved calendula, kale, and pole bean seeds. Some were from Hudson Valley Seed Library too!
My friend gave me a tomato from her garden this summer that is a distant relative of the tomato seeds her partner’s mother smuggled in her bra during her immigration from Italy. The tomatoes are some sort of giant plum variety. I dried and save some for this year. Wish me luck.
Count me in, please.
I have been gardening seriously now for just a few years, and have almost exclusively bought and planted heirloom varieties. I have a fondness for the Seed Savers Exchange based in Decorah, Iowa. I also have strong memories of eating fresh sugar snap peas straight from the garden growing up and because of these happy, warm memories, I grow a row of heirloom sugar snap peas every year and recreate the experience.
After moving away from home, the local plant I missed most was the pawpaw tree (asimina triloba). Wakling the riverbanks to find fresh pawpaw fruits was such a pleasant childhood memory. Finally last year I was able to track down seeds from the very park i used to explore (through a wonderful organization Earth Sangha), and am just hoping they will grow in my current warmer climate. If so, I hope to breed them into a local heirloom!
Count me in, please! I love their Art Packets!
I can very well recall the exitement of my parents when the tomato ST-PIERRE
arrived at the local market in mid-july, 50 years ago. It was THE fruit to put on the table than.
A beautifull, juicy,tasty mid size tomato that nobody in the family could resist.
It is a heirtloom tomato from France but was succesfully grown at a small locality
named St-Pierre les Bequets, situated half way beetween Montreal and Quebec
on the south shore of the St-Laurent river.
I have try to grow it for the first time last year with mitigated succes but it wont stop me to give it a second chance next spring.
I have eared recentely that it grows better only at St-Pierre les Becquets.
It might very well be one of the local heirloom you where talking about.
I have bought the seeds at the Montreal Botanical Garden at LA FETE DES SEMENCES (Seeds Festival) that occured every year in february where many producers offer ther exclusivites. A wonderfull shopping day.
My seeds where produced by
MYCOFLOR Inc.
7850 chemin Stage,Stanstead,QC
J0B 3E0
Theses seeds seem to be quite rare,i needed 3 years to find them.
I garden in a community allottement and i give and request vegetables from the
other gardeners to save the seeds.
I like the red russian kale we found surviving the harsh winter when we bought our house. I’ve saved seeds and planted it the three seasons since and it always comes back strong in the spring.
We grow a pole bean (green pods turn to whitish with pink tips as they mature then back to green when cooked) with seeds that dry brown. We call it Aunt Laura’s bean as she obtained it from sick members of a wagon train passing through Troutdale, VA after nursing them back to health. We figure it has been in the family and the Teoutdale area since the the late 1800s. It is special because the pods are edible (and delicious) even when the seeds are mature. I think you mentioned growing a bean with that last attribute here in your column Margaret …do the pods of the one you grow match this one?
Count me in please!
Scarlet runner beans–so prolific and full of blooms and beautiful seeds, and good to eat! I start plants for all my friends and grow them all around the house, they are my favorite annual climber.
The tomato named glacier. From a cold ckimate it flowers up early, goes all summer and lasts longest in the fall. For us the plant itself never looks good but the golf ball sized tomatoes for 4-5 months make up for it. They have a good tomato flavor and are larger than a cherry. A backbone in our garden.
Brandywine is still the best! As far as seed saving – I save different ones each year – usually flowers – one in particular is marigolds…
I like the heirloom tomato German Queen. It is big and beautiful/ugly and so delicious. Like nothing I’ve ever eaten before.
There is also a miniature tomato that is so very sweet. I rescued the plant from a nursery. It was only $.25 and was half dead, but so tiny and cute. It is incredibly prolific and the more I pick the more tomatoes grow. Don’t know the name. The lady just said that the tag had gotten lost and it was put in the reduced section to get rid of it before it died.
Count me in. Save the seed from silver dollar/money plants that I have found
surviving on the side of the road. The plant looks great dried. In the past did not
have luck with Vegetables in my neck of the woods, going to try raised beds and
would love to experiment with Hudson Valley Seeds. The art packets are super!
We save marigold seeds and zinnia seeds. Love the zinnia seeds. I am trying to paint the perfect zinnia. Not an easy task. Love the seeds in the giveaway Beautiful seeds.
Count me in please. I keep and grow seeds from a marigold my mother grew thirty plus years ago.
My efforts at saving my tomato seeds have been less than successful. The seeds germinated and the plants grew, but the tomatos themselves were disappointing. I think the problem is I grow too many varieties of tomatoes in my small city garden and they are cross pollinating. Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I do however grow a least a half dozen different heirloom tomatoes, some I grow almost every year, but I enjoy trying new types even more. My favorite tomato last summer was “Peach” a smallish tomato that was fuzzy and looked just like a peach. They were wonderful and a big hit with friends. The year before, “Pineapple” was the big hit, large and luscious striped tomatoes that so closely resembled a pineapple when sliced that I tricked my husband with them. RIght now I am truly Lusting over that Stone Ridge tomato in the photo. I must have some of those seeds!