A Collection of Seed Catalogs

I have quite a collection of seed catalogs for the current year. I’ll order from some, peruse others and ignore the rest. I choose my catalogs carefully for many reasons.

Most importantly, I want to make certain that they are not listed as dealers for Seminis. Seminis is the seed selling arm of the corporate giant Monsanto and any profit Seminis makes helps to fund Monsanto's omnipresent drive to dominate the seed business. Their drive to obtain monopoly status is well-documented and makes for some depressing reading. You can find the seed companies listed as dealers for Seminis on their home page. There you'll find such home-gardener favorites like 'Burpee Seeds' and supposedly organic stalwarts like 'Gardens Alive.'

The listing of these two draws particular attention. I grew up with Burpee; as a kid, in the long winter months of northeast Kansas, I read and re-read the Burpee catalog end to end, marking it up, folding down corners to mark special notations. Honestly, I spent more time with the Burpee catalog than I did with my homework. My grades in those years can prove it. Conversely, my knowledge of seeds doesn't necessarily prove it, but I got my start there by the fire with the gardens covered in a blanket of snow. W. Atlee Burpee and Company introduced a lot of very good vegetables for home gardeners in the late 1800's and early 1900's. They were one of America's premier breeders of vegetables and flowers. Names we know and love today are part of the Burpee legacy; the Golden Beet was a Burpee creation, Fordhook Giant Chard another – anything called 'Fordhook' is a Burpee introduction, that's the name of their research farm. They did amazing work with marigolds and other plants offered primarily to home gardeners.

On the other hand, Gardens Alive has been suspect in my book for as long as they have been around – which isn't nearly as long as Burpee. Gardens Alive promotes pest solutions that are organic, but their attitude towards pests has been anything but organic. I remember one catalog series that was headed “Declare War On Aphids!” Decidedly a non-organic approach. I know, instinctively that 'declaring war' on Nature in any of Her guises is a futile project. Declaring war on nature is the Monsanto way – the concept is that we thinking human beings can out-bomb the bugs and win.

We can't. Never have. Never will.

Every time Monsanto has been out to fight Nature, it has had unexpected consequences. How about DDT in the 1950's. That was a Monsanto product. How about Agent Orange in Vietnam? Another Monsanto product. Bovine Growth Hormone, which is under suspicion as an initiator of human health problems is a current Monsanto product – it has not been tested by outside organizations (current FDA policy has the manufacturer do their own testing which is – oftentimes – rubber stamped by the agency). In addition, there are the genetically modified seeds produced by Monsanto technology. There are others, but Monsanto is the biggest by far. Their inventory of GM seeds is a catalog of what is planted by American farmers today.

Monsanto claims to be feeding the world with their technology, but such claims are bald-face lies which can be undone with very little research. A recent release of data from a 15 year USDA (gasp! the same USDA Monsanto has bought and paid for!) revealed that 'there was no appreciable yield increase' by using GM seeds!  Then there is the simple fact that Monsanto does not do research to merely create a higher producing seed. It's not on their agenda. Nor do they do research for a more nutritious seed. That has no appeal to them. All of their research has been done to find a plant that will grow when dosed with the weed killer Roundup. The result is that millions of tons of seeds have been sold that ensures the sale of billions of gallons of Roundup. You have, by now of course, deduced who makes Roundup, right? Yes, Monsanto. So Monsanto's only guiding principle is find out what will make Monsanto's stockholders rich. Sick too perhaps, but hey, that's the price of true wealth, right?

The American nursery trade is a 39.6 billion dollar a year industry. With the purchase of Seminis in January of 2005, Monsanto is now estimated to control between 85 and 90 percent of the U.S. nursery market. This includes the pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer markets. By merging with or buying up the competition, dominating genetic technology, and lobbying the government to make saving seeds illegal, this monolith has positioned itself as the largest player in the gardening game.

Monsanto holds over eleven thousand U.S. seed patents. When Americans buy garden seed and supplies, most of the time they are buying from Monsanto regardless of who the retailer is.

(From an article in Countryside magazine.)

So that's why the diatribes against Monsanto. And now, back to my seed catalogs. So the Burpee and Gardens Alive catalogs are thrown out. Johnny's Selected Seeds is also on the Seminis list, but I don't automatically toss it. Why? The employee owned company has signed the safe seed pledge which declares they will not ever sell 'genetically engineered or modified seeds or plants.' So how do they end up being a Seminis dealer?

In Monsanto's drive to become the only seed company in the world, Seminis has purchased many different seed companies and along with those purchases, they got the inventory and patents of those companies. This means, Big Boy tomatoes are now one of many  Seminis/Monsanto products. Profits from Big Boy feed the Monsanto beast. Johnny's gets an exemption from being tossed, but if I find I need to order from Johnny's, I scrutinize my purchases to make certain I'm not buying anything that feeds the beast. Often-times, from Johnny's I am only getting one or two seed varieties that I can't find elsewhere and that's after I've looked far and wide..

My short list of the good guys is, as follows:

BAKERCREEK HEIRLOOM SEEDS; 2278 Baker Creek Road Mansfield, MO 65704; 417.924.8917 What a catalog! Beautiful pictures of the produce – vegetable porn for sure. I have never ordered from them, but I have heard good things about them. Anyone who works this hard in putting out a beautiful seed catalog is working with a great deal of love. Drooling is hardly optional while browsing here.  These are the people who perfected 'veggie porn.'  

BOTANICALINTERESTS; 660 Compton Street, Broomfield, CO 80020; 720.880.7293. I 'have been dealing with these folks for only a couple of years - I have seen their seeds on seed racks here and there, but I really got to know them for the quantity of seeds they donate to Venice High School and other educational programs. Good seed.  Clean.  Good variety and a good price. Open pollinated and often heirloom!  Great packaging!

BOUNTIFULGARDENS; 18001 Shafer Ranch Road; Willits, CA 95490; 707.459.6410  Organic seed; open-pollinated. A part of the work done by John Jeavons, a proud and active member of the population of organic and open-pollinated gardeners. If you see him, he owes me a laser pointer.

FEDCO; PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903 207.873.7333  They are rabidly anti-GMO, though they do carry hybrids in addition to open-pollinated seeds. A wonderful and extensive selection. Someone who writes this beautiful deserves to get some of our money!

PEACEFUL VALLEY FARM SUPPLY; PO Box 2209; Grass Valley, CA 95945; 916.272.4769 I have purchased many seeds (and a lot of other things!) from Peaceful Valley – I love their catalog. They have an excellent selection of cover crop seeds as well as a lot of organic gardening supplies and tools. I have used their catalog to teach organic gardening because they clearly explain their products and how to use them.

NATIVESEED/SEARCH; 526 N. 4th Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705; 520.622.5561 (Fax 520.622.5591) Specializing in the seeds of seeds of south western United States, concentrating on the ancient seeds of the First Nations People from amaranth to watermelon. A worthy cause for your money. And good seed – some amazing varieties found no where else.

PINETREEGARDEN SEEDS; PO Box 300, Rt. 100; New Gloucester, ME 04260; 207.926.3400 Probably the best economy for a home gardener – small packets of very current seed, a very good value. The smaller packets mean a smaller price so a person can order a lot more varieties and experiment. I have been a customer for many years. Please note that this company, even though they have a fabulous model for the home gardener, has not signed the Safe Seed Pledge so one must make certain that anything you order from them, is listed as 'open-pollinated.' If in doubt, find it from someone else. Pinetree should sign the safe seed pledge and let us all breathe easier about supporting their own gardening philosophy and outlook towards the home-gardener. (N.B. Please see the comment section below for Pinetree's refutation of my comments.  I am pleased to have learned I was misrepresenting them.)

SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE; Rt. 3 Box 239; Decorah, Iowa 52101; 563.382.5990 Membership fees $40. Free brochure. Some organic, but ALL open-pollinated. There are two ways to save seeds: one is to collect them all and keep them in a huge building that protects them from everything up to (and including) nuclear holocaust. The other way is to grow 'em. You can find the chance to grow them here. I have been a member for about 10 years and believe in their work; remember a Seed Savers' purchase supports their work and their work is vital to our survival in a post-Monsanto, chemical-deluged agricultural world. They are an essential part of the battle against Monsanto.

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE SEED EXCHANGE; P.O. Box 460, Mineral, VA 23117, 540.894.9480 (Fax: 540.894.9481) A commercial venture that is somewhat similar to Seed Savers Exchange, but really isn't an exchange. They do carry seed saving supplies - nice to have if you are going to save seed.

Transnational corporations can't build communities, they can't celebrate identity. Only we can do that, and we can do it with every seed we plant.  (ibid)

david

Botanical Interests Provides A New Button

From the seeds given to the Venice High School Horticulture program, I plucked this packet of eggplant to show you the beautiful art work on a Botanical Interests seed packet and to show the price of $1.59 which is a pretty good price for a gram of eggplant seed.  Mind you, this packet might be from a previous year's production so eggplant seed might be slightly higher, but still a good deal by any standards.  And I've learned you won't be gouged on shipping charges either!

I'm pleased to call everyone's attention to the newly added direct link to Botanical Interests Seeds on each of my blogs. A little bit about Botanical Interests that makes me proud to add this link to my garden writings, besides the fact that they'll give me a small commission on everyone who orders seeds by using that button:

• Botanical Interests has signed the Safe Seed Pledge guaranteeing NO GMO seeds in their listings. I consider this to be an essential commitment for any seed seller to get my business let alone my endorsement.
• They carry a solid line up of vegetable seeds, usually having one of the best prices in the business per packet. They don't carry all of my favorites, but a darn good lot of them.
• Many of the seeds are offered 'conventionally grown' or 'organically grown' when they can get the organic seed. The organic seeds are clearly marked so you can choose them easily if that's what you want.
• I like the packets and the information on each packet provides some lovely factoids which, just like one of my lectures, can make you the life of the next party you attend. Just pull out five or six seed packets and you can impress just about anyone who will listen. Never ever be at loss for something to say again.
• But the biggest reason I'm happy to put that button up here can be seed looking through the seeds donated to The Learning Garden and Venice High School's horticultural program over the years. Always high in the list of those donated the most seeds I have seen Botanical Interests time and again. Renee's Seeds and Seeds of Change have both sent along a lot of seeds too, but BI's prices nail the others to the ground. And it's quality seed in a bonus good looking, fun reading packet. Maybe one day we'll get them to do a story on the seed packets ala Burma Shave road signs! Wouldn't that be a hoot?

You probably won't find all the seed you want all the time from Botanical Interests, but the ones you do will be high quality and from a dealership you can trust to be honest and ethical. If you don't find all you want, please don't forget Seed Savers Exchange and Native Seed/SEARCH when ordering seeds also, they are the two non-profits I support and urge you too as well.

Hope will never die as long as seed catalogs are printed!

That's an old saw, I didn't make it up, though I wish I had.

david 

Veggie Porn: The Seed Savers Exchange Catalog Arrived

Another page of nekked tomatoes! Who will stop them?
Probably not yours truly...




The seed catalogs keep coming and they are all devoured with gusto – I’ve not only already ordered from Pinetree (see a previous post), I’ve gotten the seeds and some of them are already planted (onion and shallot seeds needed to go in ASAP because they really are a little late). The Seed Savers Exchange catalog arrived a couple of days ago and I got to feast my eyes on this year’s beautiful edition of offerings. So gorgeous are the photos of all their delicious vegetables, I find myself drooling and fantasizing about the harvest I’m going to realize when I buy all these seeds: folks, I submit that these catalogs cause such visceral reactions in gardeners that there is no way to avoid calling them “vegetable porn.”

Not that I want to denigrate Seed Savers Exchange; their catalog is one of the highlights of the winter months. The photos are stunning and well done – if you get the catalog, may I refer you to their famous photo of a wagon load of many different squashes spilling out to the ground with a red barn as the backdrop. If you don’t get their catalog, go online and order it – whatever Seed Savers Exchange wants for it is cheap – that one photo alone is worth bankrolling.

But the reason Seed Savers Exchange is important goes much deeper than the gorgeous vegetable photos in their catalog – and if you are not a member, I urge you to consider it. Kind of like, beauty, in this case, is more than skin deep.

Before the modern time, seeds were passed down from generation to generation – a single person or family, might have raised a tomato on that parcel of land for twenty years or more, each year selecting the best, or the earliest or the most disease resistant. As this was done over all those years, the genetic composition of this tomato gradually changed and became more adapted to just that area. This occurred over the entire agricultural world and by the early 1900’s gardeners were privy to a veritable smorgasbord of different varieties of many different vegetables. These varieties were stable hybrids that became what they were over a long period of time, they are open-pollinated and represent a genetic diversity that is one of the truly great treasures of human kind; we now call them 'heirloom' seeds. The world was blessed with thousands of such tomatoes and other vegetables. However, the richness of these differences began to be lost soon thereafter.

On one hand, our food supplies were being put in the hands of larger farms with shipping over longer distances and the operations were being carried by larger corporations and machinery was replacing hand labor as fast as inventors could come up with machines to do the work. The qualities valued were of consistency, uniformity, and shipping and holding ability. And productivity above all else. These qualities were the qualities of modern plant breeding and most seed breeding (especially in the US) was done for the benefit of these large corporations to put veggies in our local supermarkets.

Not only did our vegetables begin to taste like cardboard, which was not important to the large corporations wanting uniformity and shipping ability above all else, the many different regional varieties, with their rich diversity of genetics began to disappear. Losing this genetic diversity is as frightening as leaving our food supply in the hands of a few huge corporations that have nothing more than their own profit as their guiding interest. The potato famine in Ireland, though exacerbated by the politics of the day, had a lack of genetic diversity in potatoes grown in Ireland at that time as a root cause. Once the blight had made landfall on the island, it romped through the entire country without stopping because the two major varieties planted there shared a genetic susceptibility to the blight. Other potatoes, not grown in Ireland, and ignored for food production at that time, were not susceptible to the blight and it was these other potatoes that provided the genetic material for Ireland to be able to resume growing potatoes to feed their population.

On one hand, governments have established seed banks filled with seeds of commercial crops kept in very cold and very dry conditions to preserve some of the genetic diversity for future generations. Every so often, a seed is selected and grown out to provide more seeds for the seed bank. Though expensive, it is one way genetic diversity can be preserved. Typical of a governmental operation, it is expensive and a large, capital-intense operation.

But the other way of preserving this genetic cornucopia is for gardeners all over the world to grow them and keep the genetic lines vibrant and alive – and even creating more diversity by growing different varieties in their own gardens – or even doing their own crossing and coming up with their own stable hybrids. And enjoying the produce in the meantime! Not nearly as expensive while being more diverse and a lot more fun.

A ‘lite’ version, is to purchase from Seed Savers Exchange and allow them to continue their efforts at growing out the seeds – or join Seed Savers Exchange and be a more integral part of their effort. I support Seed Savers Exchange; investigate them and I think you’ll find their efforts essential too.

At $35, it's not that expensive and would make a wonderful holiday present for someone on your list!

david

Seed Catalogs: A Fine Tradition

Casey inspects winter vegetables: quality control at its most effective!

By now most of us have been pretty inundated with the host of shopping catalogs, a problem year round nowadays, but as the year wanes away they are more ubiquitous than chiles at a TexMex cookoff. However, in the midst of all the consumer crap, don’t miss the truly valuable traditional catalogs of this season: the new years’ seed catalogs.

In Southern California, we don’t have the stark seasons that mark the months in other climes. We do have seasons, let no fool tell you we don’t – they have confused ‘weather,’ of which we have very little, being bathed in sunshine for over 350 days a year, with ‘seasons’ which all gardeners know we do have – just try to grow tomatoes in winter – or carrots in summer. But it was in these other climes that the tradition of seed catalogs got established and, being a boy from Kansas, I’m here to tell you that the annual photographic orgy of new seeds still warms my heart with memories.

In the winter months of my childhood, the garden was frozen over and buried under a blanket of snow and my youth was preoccupied with keeping my feet warm. My feet were invariably frozen from the first of November through the end of March and it made me miserable. I never learned to sled or skate because I did not want to venture from the warm house for recreation. I did learn a ferocious game of chess and became somewhat skilled as a cat herder in attempting to get them to stay on my cold feet for warmth. A few cats got the message and were delights – I wouldn’t say they were ‘trained’ but they did spend considerable time ameliorating my suffering.

The other blessing of those winter months were the seed catalogs. We were mailed catalogs from Burpee, Henry Fields, Gurney’s and others, which all came at the time of year when gardeners throughout the frozen world were depressed and undone. With their analgesic daily efforts in the earth ripped from their clutches and the beauty of the garden hidden by ice and snow, these people were prime targets for pictures of blooms in rich glorious color, eggplants hanging seductively from gorgeous green plants, sweet corn ears with the husks teasingly parted to show the heady sight of fresh kernels bursting with milk and flavor. Yes, folks, vegetable porn has been a problem with much deeper roots than you would have imagined. It’s amazing that the Kansas attorney generals, with so much free time on their hands to reconsider Darwin at length and other such superficial pursuits, did not at one time take Mr. Burpee to task for his wanton display of plant sexuality.

But, let me tell you that it was probably those very pictures, added to the experience of cold feet and the sting of losing yet another game of chess to my grandfather that has warped my mind completely and is the real purpose you find me writing here today. Those seed catalogs were not my problem, but my salvation.

Burpee’s was the best because the layout afforded bigger pictures than the others and the printing quality was top notch. Near the fireplace, I spent hour after hour reading all the descriptions of the multitude of varieties, my mouth watering, my fingers aching for dirt under my nails and my clean knees begging to be covered in moist, brown earth. I circled hundreds of choices which I showed Grandpa, not understanding that he would not order a tenth of what I had circled. He saved seed from year to year and thus had little interest, or need, for the gorgeous pictures that had seduced me. He ordered a little here and there, but it was not the ones I drooled over.

Still, a young man, when confronted with a ripely red strawberry, fresh corn, peas and potatoes, does not quibble that this is not the one that helped him survive his depression in the middle of winter. The eating was always good.

I still look through the seed catalogs in winter. The names have changed, Burpee is no longer a respected name in the seed business having forgotten the home gardener and catering pretty much to the hybrid, ‘bigger is better’ crowd. New names have appeared, like Native Seed/Search, Pinetree Garden Seeds (my favorite), Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, Seed Savers Exchange and Nichols in Oregon. I eschew the big names – even Cook’s is no longer a family enterprise. I want the seeds my grandfather saved and not the big fancy hybrids that produce luscious, tasteless fruit that ships well and sets pound after pound of uniformly shippable quasi-food.

My Pinetree catalog was in the mail a week ago, buried among ten others of dubious value hawking electronic goods made in China that help depress our economy (why do we think that the problem is that we are not buying enough vs. not producing enough?) and oppress the Chinese workers to the profit of the very people the American taxpayer is bailing out (not that I have any feelings on any part of this subject), and within the week I had a seed order of $30 off to them. The cover is already ripped from the catalog proper, it’s been abused so badly. Not only have I gone through it several times in as many hours, I spent a memorable afternoon with someone I love very much going through the pages and noting her preferences in the margins so that I may properly plant her summer garden too.

The other catalogs are instantly recyclable, I say. Keep the seed catalogs – they entertain, they inform, they are a tradition of an agricultural society and they have proven as efficacious as Playboy for keeping at least one young man out of harm’s way.

david