Hope and Practice: Glenn Drowns

‘Seed Savers Exchange opened a whole new world to me.’

Glenn Drowns, longtime SSE member and Exchange lister, reflects on how he first became involved in the Exchange/Yearbook and why he has listed seeds for more than three decades.

It seems like just yesterday when I first stumbled across a small advertisement in the back of a magazine in the fall of 1978. The ad was plain and simple: “Send $3 for a copy of the Seed Savers Exchange list of members and seeds.”

At the time, I was a senior in high school working on research for a government class project. Many people today wouldn’t understand what it was like before the Internet, when you had to  do things like looking at The Readers’ Guide to find articles on topics in newspapers and magazines. I took a chance and sent $3, which wasn’t easy to come up with at that time. I had already sent for every free seed catalog I could locate, always searching for something rare and unusual. 

I got my first SSE publication in the spring of 1979. Wow—it opened a whole new world for me! I discovered that all of the [genetic plant] material that I didn’t realize was still out there—that I thought had disappeared because it was no longer in seed catalogs—was in some cases still around. It also opened up a wonderful world of people who became such close and lifelong friends. In those early days of SSE, we were all one big, happy family despite any religious, political, or other differences; everybody looked forward to the annual campout like people look forward to a family reunion. My closest and dearest friends came from acquaintances I met through Seed Savers Exchange. It united a bunch of us who thought we were weirdos in the world because we were doing something different than the average gardener—saving seeds. 

I don’t think most in today’s world really understand the impact that Seed Savers Exchange had on changing the gardening landscape of America. If you go back to 1980, there weren’t any  “weird-colored” tomatoes in the marketplace. They were all red. Maybe there was an occasional pink one depending upon what part of the country you were in, and some yellow-fleshed ones appeared on rare occasions. That doesn’t even begin to count the diversity of squash, peppers, and all the other interesting vegetables that Seed Savers Exchange eventually got out into the world. Now, instead of some of them being rare, weird commodities that only the fringe element gardeners grew, they are part of your average supermarket selection.  

Seed Savers Exchange opened up a whole new world for me as my collection grew and grew from a few hundred varieties to currently nearly 3,000 different varieties that I grow and maintain. Even though we have much more [seed diversity] available out there today—and perhaps many more SSE members—I would hate to think that we would use that as an excuse to let our guard down and not continue on with saving some of these precious varieties from extinction. Each person can do their own part, whether it’s one or two varieties in their backyard or maybe 15 or 20 if they have a big garden. Choose something that is either historical to you or has some special meaning, and it makes the whole process seem easy and simple. 

I started at an early age of 7 with a bean that had been in my mother’s family for over 50 years. I still grow ‘Boston Favorite’ every year, not because it is the most unique in my collection of over 400 bean varieties but because of the personal connection I have with it. Each person can do their own part in keeping this movement going—and going strong—well past the lifetimes of the current membership. I look back fondly on the early days of Seed Savers Exchange with the rapid expansion and the rapid influx of things and wonder if I had just started a few years earlier how many more varieties that our forefathers had that maybe we could have saved [from extinction]. 

As those of us at the older end of Seed Savers Exchange begin to pass on, it’s so crucial that the future generations coming up understand the importance of  maintaining this material not only in frozen seed vaults but also in active growing populations in people’s gardens all around the globe. Diversity will be the true thing that saves our planet from future collapse. It will not be from everybody growing the same type of green bean or the same genetically modified vegetable. Our strength in this world comes from the genetic diversity that we have, not from a lack of it. I know I personally will keep gardening and saving seeds until I can’t get into the garden anymore. It is my hope that each and every member of Seed Savers Exchange in the future continues on in some fashion to keep this movement going.

Glenn Drowns of Sandhill Preservation Center in Calamus, Iowa, has been a Seed Savers Exchange member since 1979. A longtime Exchange participant, he listed 81 varieties in 2025. After graduating from college in 1984, Glenn assisted SSE co-founders, Kent Whealy and Diane Ott-Whealy, with the first SSE preservation garden in Decorah, Iowa.

He has since regenerated cucurbits and corn for the Seed Savers Exchange collection on his farm, served on the SSE board, and donated nearly 600 varieties to the SSE collection. Glenn has served as a high school science teacher for Calamus-Wheatland schools since 1984 and grows and maintains around 2,950 varieties of seeds and crops, including 250 varieties of sweet potatoes. He also maintains 219 breeds of heritage poultry. 

Try these varieties, all first introduced by Glenn Drowns through the SSE Exchange/Yearbook.

‘Nyagous’ tomato

Productive, full-flavored, and virtually blemish-free, this beautiful tomato checks all the boxes!

‘Blacktail Mountain’ watermelon 

Perfect for short-season climates! Gorgeous, green-black, round fruits weigh 6-12 pounds; deep- scarlet flesh is very sweet, juicy, and crunchy. 

‘Sweet Siberian’ watermelon

Green, oblong fruits weigh about 10 pounds and grow well in most regions of the United States. Apricot-colored flesh is very sweet and juicy.

When you make a purchase from Seed Savers Exchange, you help fulfill our nonprofit mission to protect our food and garden heritage.