[/caption] This situation is a far cry from that of our recent ancestors. Only two generations ago it was still common for people to keep and breed their own stock and that stock was bred and selected for local tastes and needs. Most farm families knew how to judge a good breeder and understood more about genetic heredity than most biology students today. There were clubs and magazines dedicated to the breeding of certain chicken varieties or certain types of turkeys. I was reminded of all of this yesterday as I listened to a talk given by Frank Reese. Reese is the man who is responsible for the resurgence of heritage turkeys and he is at work doing the same thing with chickens with the help of P. Allen Smith and the Heritage Poultry Conservancy. What Reese presented was the history of the systematic destruction of diverse chicken breeds in the name of a uniform industrial system that is controlled by a very few large scale hatcheries. It is the old agricultural history of local independence and control being usurped by the industrial, international, and uniform. As Marx was right to say, freedom is dependent upon controlling the “means of production.” When even small farmers are unable to breed their own chickens those means are utterly lost. The same thing is happening in the world of seeds as well. How many of us who grow crops even know how to preserve our seeds? In the name of ease we lose our independence. If we are to recover the agrarian virtues of self-reliance and free ourselves increasingly from the bad valuations inherent in the money economy we are going to have to not only grow our own but breed our own. This will be difficult work, but it is also urgent work. There are few people who know how to judge poultry any longer and we need to learn as much as we can from them before they are gone. The same goes for plant breeding and many other forms of farm stock. Once we know how to breed stock and plants we will be able to preserve not only particular breeds and varieties that are threatened with extinction, but also we will preserve the tradition of creativity and innovation that generated the agricultural diversity that once marked our landscape and farmyards with Rhode Island Reds, Narragansett Turkeys, Florida Cracker Horses, and Gloucestershire Old Spot Pigs.]]>
Despite the fact that I've been gardening since I was a kid, it was only in the past few years that I've learned how to save seeds. There's a garden at the school that my kids attend and every fall we harvest our little crops and save seeds to sell the following year to help raise money to buy soil amendments, tools, etc.
Saving flower seeds (cosmos, 4 o'clocks, marigolds, and several other varieties) was pretty easy and a great way to learn the main ideas. But what struck me as being a particular boon to us in this day and age is the internet. At one point the head gardener handed me one of the heirloom tomatoes we had grown (a massive, slurpy thing with Kellogg in the name somewhere) and she said, “Save the seeds so we can grow more next year.” She gave me a quick run through on how to do it but when I got home with my gooey pile of tomato seed slop I felt like everything she'd said had run right out of my head as I was faced with these seeds that were unlike anything I'd dealt with before. But I hopped on the computer and there was step-by-step instructions on what I needed to do! I never could have done that twenty years ago.
Now I'm always on the look-out for new plants when I'm visiting friends or walking the neighborhood. Since they're already growing in the area I know they'll do well with our climate. And now that I know how to collect seeds I feel free to ask for those rather than asking for cuttings or something that might end up requiring some work on their part. It's really rather liberating.
Despite the fact that I've been gardening since I was a kid, it was only in the past few years that I've learned how to save seeds. There's a garden at the school that my kids attend and every fall we harvest our little crops and save seeds to sell the following year to help raise money to buy soil amendments, tools, etc.
Saving flower seeds (cosmos, 4 o'clocks, marigolds, and several other varieties) was pretty easy and a great way to learn the main ideas. But what struck me as being a particular boon to us in this day and age is the internet. At one point the head gardener handed me one of the heirloom tomatoes we had grown (a massive, slurpy thing with Kellogg in the name somewhere) and she said, “Save the seeds so we can grow more next year.” She gave me a quick run through on how to do it but when I got home with my gooey pile of tomato seed slop I felt like everything she'd said had run right out of my head as I was faced with these seeds that were unlike anything I'd dealt with before. But I hopped on the computer and there was step-by-step instructions on what I needed to do! I never could have done that twenty years ago.
Now I'm always on the look-out for new plants when I'm visiting friends or walking the neighborhood. Since they're already growing in the area I know they'll do well with our climate. And now that I know how to collect seeds I feel free to ask for those rather than asking for cuttings or something that might end up requiring some work on their part. It's really rather liberating.