Seed Savers Exchange is excited to announce a multi-partner collaborative effort with Alice Waters’s Edible Schoolyard Project. This effort will continue the work of the Heirloom Collard Project and bring in longtime Seed Savers Exchange partner SeedLinked. The purpose of this project is to create a curriculum for middle school students around growing collard greens.
As an orchard intern, it was my responsibility to learn about the heritage apples grown here and research information about these historical varieties.
In 1937, Nestor and Amber Keene acquired a very special Bibb lettuce from Nestor’s Aunt Mae Smith of Millheim, Pennsylvania, who had, in turn, received it from “local folks named Zimmerman who had grown it for decades in Brush Valley.”
There are myriad reasons humans have consumed garlic for thousands of years. For starters, it’s easy to grow, easy to harvest, easy to use, and, yes, easy to enjoy. And this year Seed Savers Exchange is making it easy to order too.
Sweet potatoes have significant cultural and culinary histories and uses across the globe. Growing sweet potatoes has very different requirements from growing potatoes.
In July 2015, a few Seed Savers Exchange preservation staff members drove about an hour-and-a-half from Decorah, Iowa, to Genoa, Wisconsin. Their mission? To meet Marilyn Leum, longtime steward of the ‘Lorenzo Trussoni Heirloom’ safflower, at an annual picnic held on the Fourth of July at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church.
Recipe submitted by Diane Ott Whealy, SSE co-founder and board member. In 1997, a Minnesota family donated the small, round ‘Mother Mary’s Pie’ melon to Seed Savers Exchange. Named after the donor’s mother, this melon was grown by three generations of the family since about 1914 and frequently used in pies.
Here at Heritage Farm—the Northeast Iowa home of Seed Savers Exchange—the ‘German Pink’ tomato is perhaps best known as “tomato number one” or “the tomato that started it all.”
Rustic and versatile, it’s often served cold as an antipasto or appetizer or warm as a side to roast meat or as a pasta sauce or on crusty bread. Chef and SSE board member, Carina Cavagnaro believes the sweet-and-sour sauce paired with the creamy eggplant and briny notes can sway even the biggest eggplant skeptic.
Rowen White reflects on her ancestral seed collection and the sacred significance of diverse corn varieties within the Haudenosaunee community. Through a journey of seed stewardship, she explores the cultural dimensions of biodiversity, emphasizing the role of cultural memory, tradition, and community relationships in preserving and restoring these seeds that have witnessed generations of history and nourished diverse cultures.