Seed Savers

by Judith Kirkwood

The story starts out a little like Jack and the Beanstalk, with a magic bean, a prolific vine, and a pink tomato.

In 1972, Diane Whealy’s Grandpa Ott left her a legacy: seeds to grow a Bavarian bean, a German pink potato-leaf tomato, and a beautiful purple morning glory with a red star in its throat that still climbs up the side of the barn every summer.

As most gardeners know, when you drop a seed into fertile soil, you start something with a life of its own, something that might last a lot longer than you do and bring pleasure, nourishment, and even riches to others along the way. Grandpa Ott planted just such a seed with his gift to his granddaughter.

Three years later in 1975, Diane and Kent Whealy founded Seed Savers Exchange, an heirloom seed movement, when they realized that Grandpa Ott’s seeds weren’t the only ones worth passing from generation to generation.

“When immigrants came to this country, they literally brought the seeds of their culture,” Diane says. “The seeds passed down through generations are real treasures; but they weren’t being systematically identified or preserved.”

The Whealys wrote letters to gardening magazines to find others with heirloom seeds and began trading seeds by mail. Thus began a fruitful harvest.

For the last quarter of a century, the Whealys have collected rare and priceless treasures that measure between the size of a pinhead and a peanut.

Their interest has generated numerous projects and offshoots. Today, Seed Savers Exchange consists of 8,000 passionate gardeners and preservationists worldwide who share their seed bounty with each other. The group has distributed some 750,000 samples of endangered seeds not available anywhere else.

As part of their genetic preservation mission, the Whealys maintain 18,000 varieties of rare vegetables (4,100 are tomatoes) at seed storage facilities at Heritage Farm headquarters in Decorah, Iowa, growing about 2,000 varieties each year. Heritage Farm’s organic Preservation Gardens, as well as an orchard with 700 varieties of 19th-century apples and 200 strains of grapes, are showcases for raising the public’s consciousness about how much we stand to lose if we don’t protect our seed heritage.

“There were 7,000 named varieties of apples in the United States in 1900,” says Kent, “but only 700 can be found now”—and heaven knows he has looked everywhere. In 1992, Kent created Seed Savers International, a network of plant collectors worldwide who are rescuing seeds from traditional food crops in danger of extinction.

The Whealys see seeds as links in an unbroken chain of humanity reaching back into antiquity. A browse through the biannual Seed Savers catalog yields information on plants like Rouge Vif d’Etampes (a squash frequently seen at the Central Market in Paris in the 19th century) and Chioggia (a beet, with alternating red and white concentric rings that resemble a bull’s eye, from Italy around 1840).

“Centuries of history are available for the choosing,” says Kent, such as “pre-Columbian seeds grown by Native American tribes throughout North America; seeds brought over on the Mayflower; varieties grown by Thomas Jefferson in his gardens at Monticello; seeds carried by the Cherokee over the Trail of Tears during the winter death march of 1838-39.”

Besides seeds, the Whealys collect the stories that come with the seeds, many connected with some kind of tale of survival.

To help fund Seed Savers programs, the Whealys opened Seed Savers Garden Store in Madison, Wis. The store, managed by their son Aaron, offers more than 300 varieties of seeds culled from the Heritage Farm collection. For $2, gardeners can perpetuate rare varieties of fruits and vegetables enjoyed by their ancestors that otherwise would wither into extinction.

“You have to realize,” says Kent, “that this is all of the genetic material that we’ll have for breeding the food crops of the future.” And, many connoisseurs would say, heirloom varieties produce more flavor and tenderness.

What better legacy to leave behind than Bavarian beans, a purple morning glory vine, a tomato, or a network of seed savers with stories to tell and vegetables to grow? Now that sounds like a tale the Whealys could pass on to their grandchildren.

Judith Kirkwood is a freelance writer in Madison, Wis.

first appeared: 2/25/2001