The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray
Authors: Janisse Ray
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atmosphere of feed and seed stores. I got a pound of peanuts for planting ($1), a scoop of squash (20¢), and a big packet of turnip seed ($1). At the grocery store the other day I had bought some of those colorful packets of seed: okra, radish, marigold, and dwarf zinnia, 49¢ each. I sowed the grainy turnip seed in a three-foot bed with a rake. I made rows and planted squash and okra. Then I hoed out a few weeds. The wind came up, it got cooler, but the clouds didn’t collect. Finally around nine (Mama and I were jogging) it began to sprinkle. Rain has fallen lightly since. Grow, grow, grow!
Eighteen years old! What was I thinking? I sound like a ten-year-old. Why wasn’t I sneaking out my window at night to join friends driving back and forth between the Dairy Queen and the Methodist Church? Soon enough I was out in the world, seeing it for myself, as much of it as I could see. In a world where there was so much to love, I came to love plants and, accordingly, seeds.
— 4 —
sycamore
I BEGAN GARDENING SERIOUSLY when I was twenty-one. In the early 1980s, I used scholarship money from college to buy land, and as a college senior I moved to this twelve-acre homestead in rural north Florida, west of Tallahassee. Already a hippie community was in full swing there in a place called Sycamore, not far from Greensboro, the next biggest town being Quincy. My place, Hoedown Organic Farm, was at the dead end of an unnamed dirt road.
In this little community of back-to-the-landers dwelled a number of gardeners who taught me what they could and inspired me to carry plant-love to new heights. All of their gardens were organic and magnificent. Sara introduced me to comfrey and chayote and luffa. Lesa grew foxglove and brought me starts of bee balm and lavender. The Fishers, macrobiotic neighbors who had owned a nursery in south Florida, had planted an incredible orchard and grew daikon radishes and Japanese greens. Once or twice a year somebody hosted a plant exchange.
In 1984, twenty-two years old and high on gardening, I ordered a strange variety of squash from the Market Bulletin , a weekly publication of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which was full of free ads. Candy Roaster, the farmer had called the squash, and described it in his ad as nothing you’ve ever seen in a feed store or a seed catalog. The squash grew two to three feet long and over six inches in diameter, like a stout, curving club. It was dark pinkish orange when ripe and scrumptiously sweet.
When I ordered it, Candy Roaster was simply a novelty to me. About that time, however, as a young granola in Sycamore, I read about the Seed Savers Exchange. It was an emerging group trying to preserve heirloom seed, mostly through the exchange of seeds by members. The Seed Savers Exchange had begun a decade earlier, in 1975, thanks to Diane Ott Whealy and her then-husband Kent Whealy. The couple was taking care of Diane’s ill grandfather, Baptist John Ott, who had been growing seeds brought by his parents from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa, in the 1870s. One was a blue morning glory with a magenta center and purple rays, which the Whealys called Grandpa Ott’s morning glory. The other was a German Pink tomato. When Grandpa Ott died, the Whealys realized that only they were left to keep their family heirlooms alive, a fact that introduced them to the knowledge that everywhere, old varieties were dying out. Many traditional varieties of vegetables and flowers, planted and saved year after year by family farmers and gardeners, were being lost or only grown by very few people—and sometimes only one person. They determined to keep seeds alive. Their exchange began a movement of gardeners who stalked rural America, questing for heirlooms.
I decided to join.
I had a new interest now in the Candy Roaster. I sent a letter to the Market Bulletin , inquiring if this was a new species, an odd squash invention, or an antique? Might there be other
Eighteen years old! What was I thinking? I sound like a ten-year-old. Why wasn’t I sneaking out my window at night to join friends driving back and forth between the Dairy Queen and the Methodist Church? Soon enough I was out in the world, seeing it for myself, as much of it as I could see. In a world where there was so much to love, I came to love plants and, accordingly, seeds.
— 4 —
sycamore
I BEGAN GARDENING SERIOUSLY when I was twenty-one. In the early 1980s, I used scholarship money from college to buy land, and as a college senior I moved to this twelve-acre homestead in rural north Florida, west of Tallahassee. Already a hippie community was in full swing there in a place called Sycamore, not far from Greensboro, the next biggest town being Quincy. My place, Hoedown Organic Farm, was at the dead end of an unnamed dirt road.
In this little community of back-to-the-landers dwelled a number of gardeners who taught me what they could and inspired me to carry plant-love to new heights. All of their gardens were organic and magnificent. Sara introduced me to comfrey and chayote and luffa. Lesa grew foxglove and brought me starts of bee balm and lavender. The Fishers, macrobiotic neighbors who had owned a nursery in south Florida, had planted an incredible orchard and grew daikon radishes and Japanese greens. Once or twice a year somebody hosted a plant exchange.
In 1984, twenty-two years old and high on gardening, I ordered a strange variety of squash from the Market Bulletin , a weekly publication of the Georgia Department of Agriculture, which was full of free ads. Candy Roaster, the farmer had called the squash, and described it in his ad as nothing you’ve ever seen in a feed store or a seed catalog. The squash grew two to three feet long and over six inches in diameter, like a stout, curving club. It was dark pinkish orange when ripe and scrumptiously sweet.
When I ordered it, Candy Roaster was simply a novelty to me. About that time, however, as a young granola in Sycamore, I read about the Seed Savers Exchange. It was an emerging group trying to preserve heirloom seed, mostly through the exchange of seeds by members. The Seed Savers Exchange had begun a decade earlier, in 1975, thanks to Diane Ott Whealy and her then-husband Kent Whealy. The couple was taking care of Diane’s ill grandfather, Baptist John Ott, who had been growing seeds brought by his parents from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa, in the 1870s. One was a blue morning glory with a magenta center and purple rays, which the Whealys called Grandpa Ott’s morning glory. The other was a German Pink tomato. When Grandpa Ott died, the Whealys realized that only they were left to keep their family heirlooms alive, a fact that introduced them to the knowledge that everywhere, old varieties were dying out. Many traditional varieties of vegetables and flowers, planted and saved year after year by family farmers and gardeners, were being lost or only grown by very few people—and sometimes only one person. They determined to keep seeds alive. Their exchange began a movement of gardeners who stalked rural America, questing for heirlooms.
I decided to join.
I had a new interest now in the Candy Roaster. I sent a letter to the Market Bulletin , inquiring if this was a new species, an odd squash invention, or an antique? Might there be other
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