Gardening is on an upswing in the nation currently. With the enthusiasm, come the gardening catalogues, but how do you know what you are getting? What do all the terms mean and how do you know you are getting heirloom vegetables and what are heirloom vegetables anyway? Don't feel bad, terminology provides a stumbling block for many people, but we can try to help out a little. I've been gardening since I was a child and it still trips me up. Every year there seem to be new marketing words that I don't get. Here are some explanations to help clear it up.
Organic Seeds
Organic seeds come from organic farms. To understand that you need to know what organic gardening is. Organic gardening isn't simply not using chemicals. According to the IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement), “Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved.” What this means is that these farms may indeed use approved chemicals, but they do it in an environmentally friendly way. Organic seed also has guidelines set by the USDA on how the seeds may be treated. These processing techniques include treating seeds with hot water, using legume inoculants to protect against disease, pelletizing seeds (encasing them in a protective covering) as long as no fungicides are included in the pellet, as well as various other treatments such as the application of microbial activators and bacterial inoculants.
Heirloom Seeds
Seeds saved from one season to the next and passed down from people to people. One of the Carondelet Garden farmers has a cherry tomato seed that he has over 50 years of saving! Seeds were traditionally saved this way. This doesn't mean they are organic. It does mean they are probably open pollinated. Seeds saved within a community can be specialized to the local weather. A gardener may have selected for a specific characteristic such as taste, marketability, disease resistance, etc.
Open Pollinated Seeds
Open pollination is pollination by insects, birds, wind, or other natural mechanisms, and contrasts with cleistogamy, closed pollination, which is one of the many types of self pollination. Open pollination also contrasts with controlled pollination, which is controlled so that all seeds of a crop are descended from parents with known traits, and are therefore more likely to have the desired traits. What this means is that the grower hasn't really selected for anything specific. What it could mean to you is that you will find my variance in the characteristics of the plants. Plants grown from controlled pollination will be more uniform and predictable. I think this label is being used to promote a more organic feel to seed selections from catalogues.
Hybrid Seeds
Hybrid seeds are produced by companies through careful pollination of two specific varieties. Normally, this highly selective plant breeding is done to bring together two traits in each of the chosen varieties so that the resulting seed has both of the traits. Seeds collected from these plants will not grow into necessarily the same plant. The positives for hybrid seeds are that they tend to perform better in your garden in terms of more fruits and vegetables produced, more plants surviving disease and pests and more flowers. For a gardener, this can mean an increased return for all the time spent in caring for a garden.
Genetic Modification
Scientists can now bypass the traditional breeding methods of manipulating plant characteristics. Rather than cross-breeding plants, they can work directly with plant DNA -- the genetic code containing the blueprint for all characteristics. Scientists can now take pieces of this code with the qualities they want and insert them into any cell. Genetic modification of seeds primarily occurs to make plants resistant to herbicides or pesticides. The field can then be sprayed, leaving the modified plants unharmed. This process is used mainly in crops grown on an industrial scale. This form of seed underlies a huge debate in food growing circles. We believe you should "Just Say No to GMO".
What does all of this mean for you? That depends. If you are just starting out in gardening, probably nothing. Get some seeds from neighbors or from the catalogue and have some success with growing. If you are an experienced gardener, you can use these terms to better select for your needs and to establish your own seed library. People used to save their seeds. This saving inadvertently bred more varieties of vegetables each suited to it's own region. Seed Catalogues sell to all growing regions and will breed to the lowest common denominator.
If you are serious about your seeds, I recommend joining and supporting Seed Savers. It's worth the annual membership.
As always save your seeds and join our seed swaps. The more seeds offered, the better we can meet the food security needs of our community.
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