Seed Savers Exchange Introduces 14 New ‘From the Collection’ varieties

A highly distinctive red pepper stewarded in South Carolina since the early 1900s. A hefty beefsteak tomato awarded top honors at the 1907 Jamestown (Virginia) Exposition. A small-sized, great-tasting cucumber grown in the mountains of North Carolina for more than a century. These are three of the 14 new “From the Collection” varieties that Seed Savers Exchange is proud to introduce in 2020.

The 14 varieties we’re introducing from our seed bank are just a few of the more than 20,000 vegetable, herb, flower, and fruit varieties that have been entrusted to Seed Savers Exchange since our founding in 1975. Each year, the Seed Savers Exchange Preservation team evaluates and collects histories and traits of a select number of these varieties as we grow them out for regeneration at Heritage Farm, our 890-acre headquarters in northeast Iowa. During these grow-outs, we identify interesting, high-performing varieties to introduce commercially so that gardeners across the country can enjoy them just like we do at Heritage Farm.

The following varieties are available for the first time this December both online and through our 2020 catalog.

‘Ram’s Horn’ Pepper
The red, elongated fruits of this variety have a sweet flavor, an even burn, and a truly unique appearance—twisted and spiraled with wrinkled skin, they resemble a ram’s horn. The pendant fruits measure 5-8" long and 1" wide, and weigh approximately an ounce, while the plants grow 1.5-2' tall and have sparsely branched, green leaves, making this variety ideal for small spaces. Highly productive when grown at Heritage Farm, ‘Ram’s Horn’ matures mid-season. This variety is originally from Emily Eidson of South Carolina, whose family grew these heirloom peppers in her childhood (circa 1910).

‘Minnesota Winter Bunching’ Onion
A true bunching onion, this flavorful, blue-green variety is a perfect addition to salads, soups, stews, and stir fries. It grows slender (up to 2'), has erect foliage, and produces from two to seven stems per plant. First offered on the Exchange in 1983, this bunching onion proved popular for decades.

‘Pearly Pink Cherry’ Tomato
Both productive and flavorful, this moderately sweet tomato variety earned top marks for taste from Seed Savers Exchange staff. Fruits are pink, slightly oblong, and borne in bunches of three to six. Popular on the Exchange, where it has been listed for more than 30 years, ‘Pearly Pink Cherry’ was given to Seed Savers Exchange by member Mrs. Echo Larson, who obtained it in 1980 from Mildred Kotar of Pineville, Louisiana.

‘North Carolina Heirloom’ Cucumber
This flavorful variety produces small, straight, pale-yellow to white fruit with juicy, crunchy, and light-green flesh. The fruits are slightly ridged, and moderately vining plants have distinctly lobed leaves and dense foliage. This prized heirloom was donated to Seed Savers Exchange in the mid-1980s by member Marian Hart and can be traced back to a family that has stewarded it for more than a century in the mountains of North Carolina.

‘Super Schmelz’ Kohlrabi
A favorite of Seed Savers Exchange staff, this sweet, juicy kohlrabi has been listed on the Exchange (our gardener-to-gardener seed swap) since 1997. Large plants have light-green stems and impressive bulbs with noteworthy texture and flavor⁠—bulbs do not get woody and can weigh up to 10 pounds. Plants grow 10-15" tall and 2-3' wide, and have very large, blue-green leaves. Donated to Seed Savers Exchange by member JoAnn Schultz, this kohlrabi originally came from Germany.

‘Louisiana Green Oval’ Eggplant
This green eggplant’s mild flavor makes it shine on the table, whether fried, baked, or roasted. The productive variety bears large, green, and oval-shaped fruit with an excellent, sweet flavor⁠. Fruits are borne singly, have faint purple stripes, and mature in color from green to yellow. Long popular on the Exchange, this variety was acquired by Seed Savers Exchange in the 1980s from Gleckler’s Seedsmen of Ohio.

‘Vinedale’ Pepper
This crunchy, juicy, and moderately sweet red bell pepper earned All-America Selections honors in 1952, after it was released by the Vineland Horticultural Experiment Station in Ontario, Canada. The early-ripening variety turns from green to dark red as it ripens, varies in shape from triangular to bell, and has medium-thick walls perfect for stuffing.

‘Waltham Hi-Color’ Carrot
Colorful and productive, this carrot variety has long, thin, straight, and moderately crisp, orange roots that are ideal for making soups and stews. Its roots taper gradually to a point and measure from 6-8" at market maturity. ‘Waltham Hi-Color’ has a low splitting tendency and produces abundant green-yellow leaves that have good resistance to leaf blight. It was acquired by Seed Savers Exchange from the Rocky Mountain Seed Company of Denver, Colorado.

‘Brimmer Pink’ Tomato
There’s a reason this pink beefsteak variety took home the Grand Prize at the 1907 Jamestown (Virginia) Exposition long before Seed Savers Exchange acquired it in 2015 from the late Gary Staley. Its juicy, pink flesh has few seeds and a mild flavor, while its thick skin is resistant to splitting and cracking, making it a good choice for canning. The hefty fruits weigh a half to a full pound and measure 3-4" wide. The tall, leafy plants are just as impressive, reaching 5-5.5' tall.

‘Hyakka’ Mustard
This beautiful, purple-green leaf mustard is ideal for salads. Its highly blistered, downward-curling leaves are pungent like wasabi, yet sweet, juicy, and crisp. Donated to Seed Savers Exchange in 2002 by member Kazumitsu Tsutsui of Kagawa, Japan, this variety is quite popular on the Exchange, where it has been shared since 1997.

‘Golden Plume’ Celery
This tasty, very uniform variety is extremely rare. A light yellow-green in color, the celery forms a small heart and has solid, juicy, and mild stalks great for making snacks or your favorite recipes. It will self blanch if closely spaced. Plants have dense, intensely flavored foliage. This variety matches historical commercial descriptions of ‘Golden Plume,’ available since at least 1925 from American seed companies such as Stokes Seeds and Henry A. Dreer.

‘Hon Tsai Tai’ Asian Greens
Perfect for stir fries! This non-heading choy sum variety produces stunning dark-green, tender, glossy leaves with purple midribs and long, dark-purple stems and petioles. The leaves have a mild brassica flavor, while the edible flowers are tender and slightly sweet. The eaves have an open growth habit and droop toward the apex.

‘Sugar Drip’ Sorghum
The sweet sap of ‘Sugar Drip’ makes this variety ideal for syrup production. Seed donor Wayne Hayes of Kentucky notes that the syrup made from these plants (which can reach 9' tall!) has truly exceptional flavor. 'Sugar Drip' was offered as early as 1909 by the T.W. Wood and Sons seed company of Richmond, Virginia, which touted its syrup-production qualities.

‘Marrowstem’ Kale
Fearing Burr made sure to note this tall kale in his landmark 1863 book, Field and Garden Vegetables of America. Its edible stalk reaches up to 30" tall and is cloaked in an abundance of leaves which can be eaten raw or cooked and are especially tender when young.

When you purchase seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, you give rare varieties (including these 14 new “From the Collection” varieties!) a place in your garden and at your table even as you support our mission and the work we do to ensure that the biodiversity of our food system remains intact well into the future.

Three rare apples get their close-up

Rare apples ripen in the Seed Savers Exchange Historic Orchard this August.

“Apples from the Seed Savers Exchange orchard are not your typical supermarket denizens,” observed the New York Times in October 2014.

That has been the case since the orchard was planted in 1989, and remains true to this day. And as temperatures begin to drop and schools start to open in towns and cities around the country, some 1,200 apple varieties—some gold, some green, some red but all precious and rare—continue to ripen in the Historic Apple Orchard at Seed Savers Exchange’s Heritage Farm in Decorah, Iowa.

These uncommon yet versatile apple varieties include Gano, Golden Russet, and Virginia Greening, all of which provided sustenance to immigrants and homesteaders during the 19th century (and perhaps even earlier) and all of which grew increasingly rare as advances in refrigeration and transportation helped fuel the decline of apple diversity. And while they may be impossible to find in your local supermarket, all three varieties will soon be ripe for the picking in our Northeast Iowa orchard.

The Gano apple, as depicted in a drawing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pomological Watercolor Collection.

The beautifully colored Gano apple has light-yellow skin that turns to a stunning purple-red when ripe. Its firm, white flesh is crisp, sweet, and juicy, making it perfect for baking pies and cobbler. Popular in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Gano is prized for not only its taste but also its exceptional storage qualities. 

The Golden Russet apple, as depicted in a drawing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pomological Watercolor Collection.

While the Gano thrived in Virginia in the 1800s, the Golden Russet was doing the same up the Atlantic coast. Described in historical documents as “the champagne of old-time cider apples,” this golden bronze-colored variety traveled to this country from England with immigrants in colonial times. Its crisp, sweet, flavorful flesh is extremely versatile, ideal for fresh eating, cider making, and baking. Even better? It stores exceptionally well, hanging on tree limbs until frost and keeping well into spring. 

The Virginia Greening apple, as depicted in a drawing from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pomological Watercolor Collection.

As its name suggests, the Virginia Greening likely originated in Virginia, where it is noted in documents that date to the 1700s. The variety bears medium to large fruit with thick and, yes, green skin with an occasional red blush and scattered large, reddish dots. Its yellow, coarse flesh sweetens as the fruit ripens, making it ideal for fresh eating. Like the Gano and the Golden Russet, the Virginia Greening is an excellent keeper that merits planting today just as much as it did in the days of Thomas Jefferson.

You can help Seed Savers Exchange ensure that these three rare varieties and more than 1,200 others being stewarded in our Historic Orchard at Heritage Farm continue to be preserved and shared, in turn ensuring that the diverse beauty and taste of North America’s 19th-century apple heritage are here for all of us today and for generations to come.

This is the third of a four-part series about Seed Savers Exchange’s Historic Orchard. Next up: easy-to-make apple recipes from Minneapolis-based chef and author, Beth Dooley.