Strategic planning is part of any good garden design, and companion planting is one of the best strategies to help gardeners do more with any space, no matter how big or small.
Read MoreWhether delicious to taste or stunning to view (or both!), there’s a reason that the 12 prized varieties introduced this December by Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) have stood the test of time.
Read MoreDid you know that amaranth is primarily harvested for its seeds and leaves? The seeds have a nutty flavor and can be used as “grain” for oatmeal or even as a thickener for soups. The leaves have a similar taste to spinach and are great in salads or stir-fry. Sometimes called “pigweed,” the average amaranth plant grows to be between five and eight feet tall.
Read MoreAugust is when the seeds truly start to give with abundance, when (if Mother Nature has also been generous!) our garden harvests become truly beautiful and bountiful. It is a time when we give thanks to the seeds for all they give us and begin to prepare for the winter ahead. It is a time to plan for our future, and—if we are harvesting seeds as well as produce—a time to begin safeguarding the seeds for the future as well. Whether we are doing this for this first or the 45th time, the challenges we continue to face together make this labor of love seem more vital than ever before.
Read MoreJohn Swenson of Glenview, Illinois, cultivated a love of gardening at an early age while tending a small garden plot of radishes, beans, and carrots (but nary a garlic bulb!) alongside his father, Merwin, in the family’s backyard garden. “What hooked me on gardening?” he muses. “I guess I was intrigued by the idea of growing something I could both eat and share.”
Read MoreThe culinary influence of the African diaspora profoundly shaped the foodways of the South, and the deep cultural knowledge of enslaved Africans on Southern plantations led to the growing and cooking of dark leafy greens becoming a regional specialty. These greens have long served an important nutritional role for Southerners, and a patch of collards could provide essential minerals and vitamins over a long harvest season. Over the years, growers also saved seed and developed a wide diversity of locally selected varieties across the South.
“My grandmother grew collards in her garden like many other gardeners grow green beans—they were just a given, “ says Ira Wallace, longtime member of Seed Savers Exchange. “And when I get excited about gardening, oftentimes it is because gardening, and especially growing collards, reminds me of her.”
Read More“The corn is one of my greatest teachers,” says Jessika Greendeer, a Ho-Chunk Nation tribal member from Baraboo, Wisconsin, and a Deer Clan member who serves as a seed keeper and farm manager for Dream of Wild Health, a Minneapolis-based organization that works to recover knowledge of and access to healthy Indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways.
Read More“You can’t have food sovereignty without seed sovereignty,” says Jessika Greendeer, seed keeper and farm manager at Dream of Wild Health in Hugo, Minnesota. “That is why this work is so important.”
Read MoreAmy Goldman of Rhinebeck, New York, is a gardener, author, artist, and advocate for seed saving, plant breeding, and preserving heirloom fruits and vegetables. Her mission? To celebrate and catalogue the amazing diversity of standard, open-pollinated varieties, and to promote their conservation. A former board chair of Seed Savers Exchange, she now serves the organization as a special adviser.
Read MoreSeed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit, member supported organization that collects, preserves and shares heirloom seeds for our future. Since 1975, SSE and our supporters have collected the seeds and stories that would otherwise have been lost.
Seed Savers Exchange is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of heirloom seeds.
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