I am currently browsing page after page of seed catalogs looking for heirloom and open pollination seeds. If you are confused by this, that's ok. Up until about 3 days ago, I was too. I thought I could just go out to the local Wally's World and grab some packets of seeds, pop them in the ground, pull some weeds, and have a bounty of healthy tasty "dirt candy". Mmmmm. But I was looking to see if the store bought seeds are GMO *shudder* and I learned a lot more than I anticipated. Most seeds (especially store bought) have been genetically modified to be frost, bug, and/or drought resistant. They are designed to resist weeds and weed killers, to grow bigger, and more produce. Unfortunately it also makes for sub-par produce. They lack in nutrients and protein and flavor. The seeds made by the plants are usually infertile so next year you will have to buy more seeds, and the year after that, and the year after that. You cannot seed bank from your own crops. There are limited varieties of the produce, and they are all grocery store staples. With heirloom and open pollination seeds I have found yellow meat watermelons, tomatoes that are green when they're ripe, and amazing purple carrots with multi colored interiors. There are varieties of foods I didn't even know had options. I knew tomatoes had a ton of modified Red varieties, I did not know I could make a rainbow salsa using just tomatoes. Seriously!
I knew I wanted to find different tomatoes. I have never been the biggest tomato fan, but love tomato soup. This past winter Campbell's had Harvest Orange tomato soup and a Yellow tomato soup. Both of which were far superior to there plain old boring red tomato soup. But this is the first time I was exposed to tomatoes of colors. I had grown some yellow pear tomatoes once, but had never seen them again and actually often wondered if it was just a realistic dream. LOL. I actually cried the first time I went to go grab a can of my beloved orange soup and saw it had been discontinued as seasonal. My foodie heart broke. I could still taste it's creamy deliciousness running down my throat and choked up at the thought of never tasting it again. HA! Now I will be able to make my own, better, tastier, healthier than I ever imagined orange tomato soup to be. Maybe, this whole time, the reason I disliked tomatoes was that I had been eating the wrong kinds!
Three days ago, I was worried about how I was going to fill the tiny plot of land we've dedicated to a garden. It's quite late into the season and we're just now getting started. I was certain that I would be out of luck when it came to anything actually growing to fruition starting now. I now know I can have a garden, fresh veggies and fruits, all year long without needing a green house. That the foods I was so worried about missing this spring will grow again wonderfully in the fall. And that there is plenty of produce I can grow through the summer that will knock my family's socks off.
Open pollination is a fancy word to say that bees, birds, wind have to do it for you. Closed pollination is where it was laboratory designed to do the pollinating. I just want good natural goodness..... not lab crap! I can get that from the store with a LOT less effort. Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been seed banked for generations, the seeds and their bounty being the heirloom wealth passed down to each new farmer. These seeds are not mutated in a lab. The best have been cross pollinated and cross bred naturally to have the most desirable traits while leaving the food full of deliciousness and nutrition and the seeds capable of creating this bounty again the next season.
And do not think for an instant that now your choices are limited now. I have found the exact opposite to be true. Where I didn't know how I was going to fill the land before, I am now debating how much larger I can feasibly go. I have probably 6 different kinds and colors tomatoes I want to grow. Three kids of zucchini, four kinds of carrots, 2 kinds of corn, cukes, melons, beans, squash, onions, lettuce (oh my the lettuce), beans, artichokes, spinach. I ran out of room somewhere around the corn. I want my children to see what healthy looks like, to dig in the fertile earth with me. To produce goodness not available at the grocers. I want them to be excited over sprouting and flowering. To celebrate when we get to make our first homegrown salad and know that there are few around that will know it's bounty.
My challenge to you today is to plant something edible. Get in there and get dirty. It can be one cherry tomato plant in a pot on a window sill. It can be an acre plot with more food than one family can consume. Find seeds that are open pollination or heirloom. Take the first step to being independent of commercially produced field grown poisons. Take the step of becoming self sufficient. Play in the dirt. Relish in it's simplicity and complexity. Remember how fun mud used to be rather than the curse it tends to become as we age. Grow, not just your food, but yourself.
So, I am going to go finish browsing these seeds. I'll try to keep myself in check, but get the most benefits for my family. Then I will go and day dream of my hands caked with warm mud, the smell of fresh earth, and the satisfactory expectation of seeds just being sown. Maybe, when it's all grown and ready for harvest, we can have a feast, a festival of sorts, celebrating the wonderful gift our little garden has given us. We will bank our seeds for next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. We will continue the tradition of heirloom, the lineage put forth by Native Americans and pioneers alike. And we will eat knowing that this time, we truly are unprocessed.
That's if my brown thumb doesn't kill it all first.
Today I wish you passion.
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