Welcome to Seed Savers Idol, where seeds are given a chance to showcase their good looks and talents.  This competition is open to the thousands of seeds residing in Seed Savers collection, and the competition is stiff, as only the Top 20 will move on.  The prize?  Nationwide exposure in the 2010 Seed Savers seed catalog ensuring the longevity of your seed variety’s population.

Okay, maybe this is a bit dramatic, but only a little.  Many varieties are endangered, and offering them for sale in the catalog could turn them into best sellers.  What happens to a best selling heirloom seed you wonder?  Well, other seed companies will start to sell that seed (imagine a famous heirloom like the Brandywine tomato).  And the more seed companies that carry heirloom variety seeds, the better we seed savers sleep at night knowing seeds will be grown and saved by gardeners across the country.

Need proof? Take the charismatic watermelon variety Moon & Stars (Van Doren Strain).  At one time very few seed companies offered this heirloom (two in the U.S. in 1987).  As the watermelon became more popular, seven companies offered it in 1991.  Twelve in 1994.  At last count, 47 companies offered this watermelon in 2004.

Some of this years’ Top 20 include the Black Valentine Bean, Bumble Bee Bean, Kenearly Yellow Bean, Sultan’s Golden Crescent Bean, and Mortgage Lifter (Halladay’s) tomato.  And yes, we hope they become very popular. 

With thousands of varieties to choose from in the collection, figuring out which varieties we will sell in our catalog is no easy task. 

One way that we pick seeds for the catalog is by using trial gardens.  Trial gardens are what they sound like -gardens where we “try out” a certain species by growing them in the garden.  This past season one of our trial gardens was for cucumbers.  When we have a trial for a certain species, we grow out all the varieties we have in our collection, in this case over 200 cucumbers.

Cucumber in a trial garden.

For the catalog, we look for varieties that gardeners might like to grow.  We assess all of the cukes by looking at characteristics such as days to maturity, disease resistance, and growth habits (are they vining or bush?).  Taste testing is a favorite staff event.  The competition is fierce, but using this data we compile a “Top Ten” list of our favorite varieties.  We then start bulking up on seed on these varieties so that we can offer them in a future catalog.

For the collection, Seed Savers also used the cucumber trials to get to know, and better understand, the collection.  Staff Horticulturists took descriptions of each plant during various stages of its life cycle, using around 70 different descriptors to identify them.

So, congratulations Tours Squash and the Purple Pickling Eggplant, and those other 2010 selectees.  All of you seeds have big work to do.  Now, go out and make us proud by becoming famous.

BELOW: Cucumber taste trials, you better come with a thesaurus to come up with enough words to describe a cucumber's taste such as crisp, bitter, sweet, refreshing, citrusy...

 BELOW: Field trial for cukes

Glenn Drowns, a listed member at Seed Savers since 1980, picked his way through 31 Black Jersey Giants to take home for breeding.  Winter’s coming and our birds are looking for homes.

Glenn, the chicken whisperer, scooped up a bird, calming it as if it to say, “Don’t worry, you’re going to a better place.” He was looking for birds with the best traits for the variety:  yellow feet, taller posture, combs without sprigs, size, and black coloring.  He ended up with 11 chickens.  This might not seem like much, but these are the biggest chickens you can get, weighing in at an average of 13 pounds a piece.  Glenn laughed when he first saw our giants, “Have you been feeding them lead weights?!”  

BELOW:  Glenn Drowns, The Chicken Whisperer. Glenn and his wife Linda call themselves, “genetic preservationists who are in this for the genetic diversity of this planet we all call home.” 

The Seed Savers’ board of directors voted last December to create this exhibit because heritage poultry, like heirloom seeds, are endangered reminders of our cultural and historical food origins.  And we believe that it is important to tell the story of genetic preservation to the visiting public at Heritage Farm.  So this past spring Glenn brought us six different poultry varieties from his Sandhill Preservation near Clinton, Iowa, to Heritage Farm for our poultry exhibit:

Grey Pomeranian Saddleback Geese
Khaki Campbell ducks
Buff-laced Polish chickens
Buckeye chickens
Black Jersey Giant chickens 
Chocolate turkeys

No sooner had the birds arrived than they became a favorite part of the farm; staff, visitors, and members alike flocked (pun intended) to take a gander at the poultry scratch and cluck their way around their new home.   At our annual conference in July, Glenn’s 20 minute presentation on this year’s breeds was followed up by two hours worth of questions.  Obviously, there is great interest in heirloom fowl. 

This past week, with the days getting shorter by the minute each day, it was time to close the poultry house and harvest our birds, most of whom had gained a considerable amount of weight following a leisurely summer at Heritage farm.

Whoa, wait a minute, did you say, harvest! 

Now, you just hold on to your socks!  Before you jump to conclusions and imagine us running around like chickens with our heads cut off - we can’t keep birds on the farm over winter, harvesting simply means finding them a new home.  Our poultry exhibit has morphed into an adoption program for heritage poultry - a “bird pound” if you will. 

The first birds to find a home (and the luckiest) went back to whence they came, the Sandhill Preservation Center. Glenn picked out the best specimens to take back for his breeding program.  He took all 6 Chocolate turkeys, which are a critically listed breed with the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (meaning there are fewer than 500 breeding birds in the United States). 

Curious what it takes to qualify as a heritage turkey?  The three criteria are (1) naturally mating, (2) long productive outdoor lifespan, and (3) a slow growth rate.  All three of these standards are compromised in the US in order to meet the current demand for commercial turkeys - efficiently produced breast meat at the lowest cost.

After picking out a few more birds, and a comment from Linda, “you’d think 3,000 birds would be enough!” the Drowns and their new flock of caged poultry headed south.   

Although 28 birds were headed to a better place, that still left 55 soon-to-be homeless birds, wondering about their winter fate.  So, staff members were given the opportunity to adopt-a-bird, and the preservationists among us were willing to take their work home with them.  The poultry were divided and now there are 5 new breeding flocks of rare and endangered heritage poultry in Northeast Iowa.  

Glenn will bring a new set of poultry for our display next year, and the next year, and, well, you get the idea.  In fact, Glenn maintains enough different varieties of poultry that it will be 15 years before Seed Savers ever sees the same variety twice.   So, be sure you all come back and see us again next year! 

Click here to learn more about the Glenn’s amazing projects at Sandhill Preservation.

BELOW: Facilities crew helping Glenn move Chocolate Turkeys

BELOW: Chocolate Turkeys heading to the Sandhill Preservation

BELOW:  Seed Savers Staff helping move Buff Lace Polish chickens

"Do not eat garlic or onions; for their smell will reveal that you are a peasant.” Cervantes in Don Quixote.  

Today, the once lowly garlic has found its way into kitchens everywhere because of the flavor it adds to food. 

It wasn’t always so.  Garlic used to be found  only in “exotic” cuisine (think Mediterranean or Asian), and seldom appeared in most middle class American homes in the 1950’s and 1960’s. 

But that has all changed.  Just check out the Food Channel and you will find every kind of cooking show starting off with its most important ingredient - garlic.  And what most people don’t know is that garlic is very easy to grow. 

Peter Henderson, the great-great grandfather of truck farming in America, wrote of garlic in Gardening for Profit in 1867,  "It is of the easiest culture, growing freely on any soil suitable for Onions."

Garlic is the last vegetable we plant every year and one of the first to be harvested in the summer.  At Heritage Farm this week, both commercial and preservation staffs are splitting open garlic heads in preparation for planting. These cloves were harvested only a few months ago, and as other gardens are being put to bed for the winter, the garlic beds are being prepped for planting. 

Cultivated garlic varieties do not produce seed.  Consequently, garlic depends on humans to clone it by planting its cloves.  The preservation staff is planting somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 cloves – approximately 20 to 30 cloves each of 310 different garlic varieties for our collection.  Meanwhile, the commercial crew will plant out 60,000 cloves consisting of 16 different varieties for our seed catalog.

So, before you stow those garden tools for the winter, consider these 4 garlic planting tips from one of our garlic growers here:

1.)  Around here, October is usually the best month for planting garlic.  You should aim to plant when the soil temperature is around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. 

2.)  To grow large bulbs of garlic, plant the biggest cloves.  When you are ready to plant, separate the cloves from the bulb, leaving the outer skin on the bulb. 

3.)  Plant the cloves root end down, 6-8” apart, in rows spaced 10-12” apart.  Cover with 2” of soil and a 4-6” layer of mulch, such as leaves or straw. The mulch allows for gradual freezing and thawing, as the frequent freeze and thaw cycle in spring and fall can be damaging to garlic.  You can just leave the mulch on in spring; it will help control weeds, retain moisture and provide nutrients as it decomposes.

4.)  Cloves will begin to sprout in 2-4 weeks, with around 6” of root, depending upon the variety and the weather conditions.  Don’t worry, the mulch should protect the plants from frost or a freeze but they will survive through the winter.

And then you’re done! At least for the winter...The garlic will start growing again in early spring.  Keep your garlic beds weeded and if you planted hard neck varieties cut the scapes, those long curly stems that grow above ground, when they are about 6 inches long (but don’t forget to save them for stir-fry, salads and pickling!).  Depending on where you live and the weather, garlic will be ready for harvest sometime between late June and early August (see our garlic harvesting blog).   

By then you will be ready to start the process all over again.  And Don Quixote aside, happy eating.

BELOW: Commercial garden crew planting garlic surrounded by fall colors.

BELOW: Splitting garlic heads.