Printing the Yearbook

The Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) Yearbook has been sent to the printer! If you’re a long-time member, the arrival of the Yearbook may be the most anticipated garden-planning event of the year. If you’re new to SSE, however, the term ‘Yearbook’ can be a bit perplexing, and may conjure up memories of unfortunate portraits and embarrassing club associations.

The annual Yearbook is one way of accessing the Seed Savers Exchange, a network of gardeners, farmers, plant breeders and chefs who contribute to the most diverse seed exchange on the planet. Heritage Farm (where our staff maintains a permanent seed collection, sells seeds commercially, hosts events and publishes the seed exchange) is one part of this network.

Each year, hundreds of SSE members put together a list of fruit, vegetable, grain, flower and herb seeds they have harvested and would like to share with others. These seeds are organized in a database that is available online (exchange.seedsavers.org) and printed out annually as our Yearbook.

Entering thousands of open-pollinated plants into a publicly accessible database each year requires hundreds of hours of staff time. From September to January, SSE staff is busy pouring through lists of tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers, potatoes, watermelons, rutabagas, apples, peaches, kiwis, sunflowers, hops, hollyhocks and zinnias (and at least 200 other plant types). When these lists are entered, we have about a week to proof 500 pages of nearly 20,000 offerings.

Since 1975, the Seed Savers Exchange has been connecting our members to one another through the annual Yearbook. All SSE members can participate in the seed exchange by requesting seeds (there are 13,000+ different varieties to choose from), offering seeds, or both.

It is never too late to offer seeds; although the 2014 Yearbook is already being printed and shipped, the Online Seed Exchange is always open to new members and new seeds.

The Seed Savers Exchange is one of the most resilient tools for preserving rare garden varieties. As a member, you have the opportunity to contribute to the seed exchange by growing your favorite fruits and vegetables, saving seeds, and sharing those seeds with others.

To browse the exchange online, learn how to save your own seeds, request rare varieties, or to offer seeds yourself, visit exchange.seedsavers.org. Membership is required to log in, but educational resources are open to everyone. If you’d like to be a part of the exchange and receive the-500 page Yearbook, join SSE today.

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Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization located in Decorah, Iowa, with a mission to conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

Behind the Barn Door

Grandpa Ott’s morning glories cover the south face of the iconic barn at Heritage Farm, home of Seed Savers Exchange (SSE). But don’t be fooled by the scenery! This barn is much more than a pretty postcard – especially come harvest time.

Behind that wall of sleepy purple blossoms lies one of the busiest seed-saving operations in the country — the first hint of which is the unmistakable sweet aroma of ripe melons drifting from the open double doors. Colorful piles of ripe fruits and veggies sit waiting in buckets while fans blow gently over screens and drying racks full of tiny seeds. The colors, smells and sounds are almost as overwhelming as the neatly printed to-do list on the staff white board.

But of course it hasn’t always been like this. SSE’s seed saving operation started in a kitchen, probably much like your own, almost 40 years ago. That’s where we started the seed saving renaissance that is taking place today. If you’re reading this post, it means that you’re part of this movement, and may want to do more.

You could start by saving your own seeds this season. But even if you don’t, there is something important you can do right now to help the cause of saving biodiversity and our country’s vanishing garden heritage. And you won’t need any special tools or equipment to do it.

By making a year-end gift to Seed Savers Exchange you can help fulfill our non-profit mission to conserve and promote heirloom vegetables, fruits, flowers and herbs. Your generosity will make possible the continuation and expansion of our critical preservation and outreach programs and will allow us to:

• Grow out more than 600 varieties in our collection next year, so that we can evaluate, improve germination and replenish seed stocks
• Provide educational webinars on seed saving, hand pollination and seed harvesting to serve a national audience of backyard gardeners, community gardeners and seed library members
• Facilitate the exchange of thousands of seed varieties among backyard preservationists through the SSE Yearbook and Online Seed Exchange, one of the greatest sources of heirloom varieties in the world
• Maintain thousands of varieties of open-pollinated plant types in our seed bank in keeping with genetic preservation standards
• Document valuable cultural and historical information on varieties

Thank you for your ongoing support and for making a gift to help Seed Savers Exchange do more to preserve our country’s rich agricultural diversity today! By safeguarding the seeds of our garden heritage you will ensure a healthy planet for generations to come.

PS: The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership estimates that 60,000 to 100,000 plant species today are threatened with extinction. Support us in our efforts to reverse this trend by giving a tax deductible donation today!

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Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization located in Decorah, Iowa, with a mission to conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

Seasons Come and Go

By Paul Ludwig and Lori Slindee

December hours for the Visitors Center are Fridays from 9 to 5 and Saturdays/Sundays from 10 to 5.

As we wind down the 2013 season here at Heritage Farm, the Visitor Center Staff would like to take a moment and thank everyone who came through the Lillian Goldman Visitors Center this year. We’ve met a lot of people, heard a lot of stories, and thought we would share some highlights.

We’ve had visitors from all over the world this season. What fun it was to open the doors to travelers from far places such as England, New Zealand, Argentina, South Africa, Israel, Australia and China. Canadians are also common in the Visitor Center, often looking for seeds that will grow in their northern climate. One day, we had visitors from both Panama and Alaska here at the same time! They enjoyed discussing the differences of their garden experiences.

Of course, some of the most exciting days at the Visitors Center are during events such as our annual Conference and Campout, the Tomato Tasting, various workshops, and weddings or dances in the barn loft. But in between these good times we’ve also had a few adventures here, too. Once, a family with a young baby was out hiking and found themselves cut off by rising water in a flash flood! Luckily it was an easy rescue by our crew and a tractor. There was also the summer afternoon when we locked down the Visitor Center because a few Ancient White Park cattle had escaped their pen and were playing in the parking lot. Talk about “free-range” cattle!

It was also quite special when staff and visitors shared fun discoveries together. One family was delighted to find an herb seed packet bearing their last name: Grandma Einck’s dill. Upon further conversation, we found that they were originally from this North East Iowa region and possibly related to our co-founder Dianne Ott Whealy’s Grandma Einck (whom the dill variety was named after).

Though many people come here for garden advice, working in the Visitors Center has also been a learning experience for us, too. There was a local Amish woman who shared with us that her favorite okra to grow is the Clemson Spineless because it is easy to pick, but they also like to grow Red Burgundy because it is pretty and less prone to being “woody” in texture. Now we share this information with everyone asking about okra. In addition to gardening wisdom, we’ve also heard many wonderful recipe ideas from visitors. One woman shared with us how she enjoys cooking and then mashing Burpee’s Golden Beets to be served with butter. We heard about how good Jimmy Nardello’s pepper is fried with onions. Also, we learned that our Nebraska Wedding tomato is good for stuffing with chicken salad.

Even with all the variety we have—both in commercial seed packets and in the seed exchange—we have been surprised that visitors still come looking for varieties that we do not have (some varieties we’ve never heard of!) They often do find what they are looking for, however, and are so delighted because they never thought they would. Regardless, people always seem to leave the Visitor Center happy. Even during the Harvest Festival, when we had a gloomy, dreary day, everyone was in jovial spirits.

As we wind down the visitor season, we are reminded of all the visitors who smiled back as they left, saying “See you next year!”

The Lillian Goldman Visitor Center will be open Fridays from 9 to 5, Saturdays and Sundays 10 to 5. December 23 we close until March.

2013 Seeds are half price and there are many beautiful gift items for the gardener in your life!

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Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization located in Decorah, Iowa, with a mission to conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

2013 Squash Festival: Squashtastic

The fifth annual Seed Savers Exchange Harvest Festival incorporated a celebration of squash with all the fun activities everyone has come to expect at the autumn event. The versatile and dynamic Cucurbita genus offers so much more than just pumpkins and zucchini, and the SSE crew was eager to show it off. Along with a beautiful heirloom squash display, attendees enjoyed a variety of gourmet squash soups, workshops on saving squash seed, a lecture on the origins and evolution of squash, and a talk on the culinary uses of different squash varieties. Festival-goers also helped press apple cider, sampled a variety of apples from the Historic Orchard, learned to plant and grow garlic, enjoyed a guided edible and medicinal plant identification walk, and learned to make broomcorn brooms. Turnout for the event was great despite the wet and cool weather, which was decided by all to be ideal conditions for the soup cook-off.

The Harvest Soup Cook-off is quickly becoming a highlight for this annual event, where chefs from some of the most respected local restaurants enter a soup for attendees to vote on. In the days prior to the festival each chef was given a box of Potimarron squash, and each one showed up Saturday with a delicious and unique soup for the contest. After the ballots were cast and the votes were tallied, Chef Tom Skold of Albert’s Restaurant was declared winner of this year’s cook-off.

Entering his Harvest Bean and Squash Soup, the chef admitted he had not handled the rare Potimarron winter squash before. He said of it, "With such a brilliant, colorful squash, I was really excited to use it," adding, "this is a transitional time where you can still get your fresh produce out of the garden as well as your fall crops. Everyone is interested in eating this time of year, so it’s really a good time to be a chef." Below you'll find Chef Tom Skold’s winning soup recipe.

Download all of the mouth-watering squash soup recipes here.

Harvest Bean and Squash Soup

Ingredients

¾ cup Anasazi beans, soak overnight water to cover salt and fresh ground pepper, to taste 4 cups Potimarron (or butternut) squash, peeled, large dice 6 medium tomatoes, cored, halved 6 tablespoons olive oil 1 ancho chili pepper 8 cloves garlic, sliced 1 white onion, large dice 4 cups chicken or vegetable stock 3 tablespoons rosemary, chopped ¾ cup hard cheese (such as parmesan), grated

Method

1. Drain the soaking water from the beans, cover in fresh water, bring to a boil with a pinch of salt, and simmer until thoroughly cooked.

2. Preheat oven to 425F. Place the squash and tomato halves on separate baking sheets and drizzle them each with 2 T. olive oil, then season with salt and pepper. Roast the squash and tomatoes 45 minutes at 425F and reserve, cutting the tomatoes in large pieces when cool.

3. Heat the remaining olive oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven. Toast the ancho chili on all sides and remove; when cooled seed and chop. Add the garlic to the same oil, toast golden brown and remove. Add the onions to the same oil and cook until caramelized.

4. Add chicken stock, rosemary, cooked beans, reserved squash, tomatoes, chilis, and garlic to the pot and bring the soup to a boil. Puree part of the soup to thicken, season to taste and serve topped with the grated cheese.

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving and promoting America’s culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

Varietal Evaluations: Carrots

The Preservation Department at Seed Savers Exchange works hard to maintain the rare collection of heirloom varieties we've acquired from farmers and gardeners over the past few decades. In order to keep this collection alive and well, our staff carefully plans and implements grow-outs to evaluate the varieties and regenerate seed stock. As part of this evaluation process, staff take meticulous notes about the characteristics of each variety when grown out. These photos document the evaluation process of a few carrot varieties (Daucus carota) after harvest, although evaluations of each variety really begin with the seed before it is planted.  

Freshly harvested and cleaned carrots.

Horticultural Technician Steffen Mirsky takes portrait photos of the harvested varieties.

Detailed information is entered into a database for each variety on such characteristics as color, shape, length, and weight, as well as other criteria.

Varieties are then scanned and archived with the collected data.

The carrots are sliced to analyze interior characteristics and for raw taste-testing (picture: 'Jaune de Doubs').

The carrots are steamed until tender. The steamed carrots are tasted and evaluated for culinary use.

Summary descriptions of each variety are written for the SSE Yearbook, with the hope that these descriptions will encourage gardeners to take the seeds from our collection and put them in their gardens and on their dinner tables (pictured: 'Amstel').

Please consider becoming a member of Seed Savers Exchange to support these preservation and evaluation efforts. Along with many other benefits, SSE members are able to access thousands of rare and unique heirloom seeds offered by other members in our annual Yearbook. Seed Savers Exchange also offers seeds from our vast collection in the Yearbook, allowing members much more diversity to choose from than what's available in the commercial catalog. In 2013, Seed Savers Exchange is offering 2,431 different varieties in the Yearbook for members to request. Join us today to help conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage.

Located six miles north of Decorah, IA, Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the preservation and distribution of heirloom seeds.  Seed Savers maintains a collection of thousands of open pollinated varieties, making it one of the largest non-governmental seed banks in the United States.  For more information, go to seedsavers.org

Gary Paul Nabhan Speaks at Seed Savers Exchange

At this year's 33rd Annual Conference and Campout, Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) was more than happy to welcome back a long-time friend, Gary Paul Nabhan. Gary has been a supporter of Seed Savers Exchange going back to before 1980, and has since appeared at numerous SSE Conference and Campouts. Having recently published a book titled "Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land," he spoke this year about climate uncertainty becoming the new normal and the importance of adapting our food systems to a changing climate. Stressing the importance of agrobiodiversity in mitigating the effects of climate change, the Ecumenical Franciscan brother led Conference attendees in a renewal of their vows—to seeds. Repeating after him, the crowd recited:

I, (name), a gardener, farmer, seed saver, and eater,

wish to renew our sacred vows

to take care, love and serve,

the astonishing diversity of life on this earth.

Through sickness and in health ("I bet you knew that line," Gary laughed),

in times of crisis and times of joy,

to sow the seeds of food justice,

to sow the seeds of food security,

to sow the seeds of food democracy,

to sow the seeds of true food sovereignty,

through our own actions and our own eating patterns

so that we may all eat what we have truly sown.

I reaffirm our covenant with this earth,

to humbly be one more way that seeds themselves regenerate into more seeds to nourish all of us.

View the video of Gary Paul Nabhan's keynote address at the 2013 Conference and Campout:

Check out Gary's website here, and his recent article in the New York Times here.

Stop back to our blog in the coming weeks for more coverage of this year's Conference, as well as the Harvest Edition of the Heritage Farm Companion coming out this Autumn.

Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit, 501(c)(3), member supported organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. Our mission is to conserve and promote America's culturally diverse but endangered garden and food crop heritage for future generations by collecting, growing, and sharing heirloom seeds and plants.

2013 Conference and Campout Slideshow

With nearly 400 attendees from across the U.S. and beyond, the 33rd Annual Seed Savers Exchange Conference and Campout was a huge success. Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) members are passionate about what they do, and events like this are important for networking, seed swapping, and sharing knowledge. The conference also introduced new seed savers and gardeners to resources, information, and gave many the inspiration to get started.

For the first time ever, Seed Savers Exchange held a Member Field Day on Friday before the conference started. Over 150 members were given behind-the-scenes tours and discussed possibilities for future member engagements with SSE staff and board members. It was a wonderfully productive day that is sure to become a fixture at future SSE Conferences.

Another highlight from the Conference was the distribution of former SSE member Mary Ann Fox's bean collection. SSE inherited Mary Ann's enormous seed collection after her passing in February, and successfully distributed the entire collection to seed savers at the Conference who were eager to carry on her legacy. Read about Mary Ann Fox in our blog and in Modern Farmer Magazine, and look to the Harvest edition of our membership publication, The Heritage Farm Companion, for in-depth coverage of both the member field day and the distribution of Mary Ann's bean collection.

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Click here to read about the 2014 Conference and Campout set for July 18-20, 2014

Check back on our blog to see more coverage of the 2013 Conference and Campout. Now posted: Gary Paul Nabhan's keynote address!

Located six miles north of Decorah, Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit membership organization dedicated to the preservation and distribution of heirloom seeds.  Seed Savers maintains a collection of thousands of open pollinated varieties, making it one of the largest non-governmental seed banks in the United States.  For more information, go to seedsavers.org