Kitchen Garden: Part 3, Buying Seeds

Now that you have selected the seeds for which you have time and energy, you need to find a place to buy them. If, like we do, you prefer heirloom varieties, you may want to check out heirloom only sources. Note, however, that other seed suppliers, like Jung’s, sell many seeds that are considered heirloom

Growing produce from heirloom varieties gives you a direct connection to a time preceding manufactured food. Many, if not most, heirloom vegetables and fruits were developed in the century immediately preceding the preemption of our food sources by food factories and fast food chains.

Heirloom vegetables survive from a time when most food was purchased fresh from a specialty market. Of course, at the time they did not know they were specialty markets. The idea of a supermarkt lay in the future when these veggies were bred. The vegetables we now call heirloom were popular with the truck markets and heirlooms were grown for home, kitchen gardens. The produce of heirloom plants tends to generate more intense aroma, flavor and texture than vegetables produced by modern farm collectives.

Many of the best heirloom vegetables are only appropriate for kitchen gardens and local farmer’s markets because they are delicate. They hold tremendous flavor and are easy to prepare but they require careful handling. The best part of a kitchen garden is being able to grow and taste these vegetables from our past.

Today, our produce has to stand up to travel. Much of what you buy from the fruit and vegetable aisles in the supermarkt arrive there from thousands of miles away. To avoid bruised goods, hybrids and GM foods are designed to have thick outer layers and resistance to breaking and bruising. Often, these characteristics come at cost to aroma, flavor and texture. While heirloom vegetables were expected to be harvested and delivered within a day, supermarkt produce must last several days or weeks. When you eat an heirloom, you taste not only the freshness, but a genuine difference in the character of the plant.

A great source for heirloom vegetables is the Seed Savers Exchange. Seed Savers Exchange was begun in the 1970’s to preserve and relocate food plants that were disappearing as collective farming homogenized planting practices and destroyed the diversity of North America’s agricultural industry. Seed Savers Exchange offers a huge variety of seeds at reasonable prices.

Other heirloom seed sources abound. A fairly complete list can be found here.

So, order your seeds, plan indoor and outdoor planting and you will have great produce by the end of July. Plant some lettuce. It’s beautiful, easy and delicious.

copyright 2006 Chromia Poetics