The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray Page A
Authors: Janisse Ray
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old varieties like this that people had been keeping alive?
I found in the paper where you wanted to know about those candy roasters. I have plenty of those seeds. I raised 13 good ones this year. They sure make a nice pie. I thought I would let you know they are still around.
Bertha Woody
Ellijay, Georgia
P.S. I have a son living in Orlando, Fla.
I’m so glad your Canney Roaster Sweet Potato pumpkins have done so well. And indeed I think they are delicious also. Some people pick very young and fry like yellow squash but I let mine get big and dry and cook like pumpkin. I’ve only had them a few years maybe 6 or 7, but Granny Dills is 86 yrs old and she is who told me they are Canney Roasters and she said she ate them in her younger days so I do not know how old they are. I have never seen it in a catalog but I’ve never looked much either. I got seed from my husband’s first cousin and he called them tater pumpkins. An older relative down the road has relatives in N.C. and he said they raise them up there but they also call them Canney Roasters.
Sincerely,
E. Wise
Dahlonega, Georgia
I saw your letter in the Market Bulletin. I was born in Luthersville. My daddy still lives at Grantville, Ga. It’s down below Newnan. I love all kinds of odd flowers and vegetables. I don’t have a lot of the old-timey vegetables that you wanted. Would send them if I did. I have the peter pepper (hot) and cow horn pepper. I wondered if I sent you the money would you send me a banana tree? Or tell me of a place down there where I could order things like that. I’ve got a pineapple that I started from a pineapple. Also an avacado. Thanks so much.
Love,
Frances Campbell
Paducah, Kentucky
P.S. I was born July 21, 1933.
A friend, Irwin, and I nailed together a one-room, off-the-grid, tarpaper shack in Sycamore. I’ll be generous and call the structure, which was constructed of heart pine planks and two-by-fours recycled from defunct tobacco barns, a cabin. Irwin and I weren’t engineers, much less carpenters. We were youth scoffing at a capitalist society.
Even before the cabin was finished I had a garden started. I planted only open-pollinated varieties, since I wanted to save my own seeds and keep food’s gene pool strong. I was ordering seed from small companies like Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Pinetree Garden Seeds, which marketed inexpensive, family-size packets for the home gardener. (In 1985, sixteen packets cost me $6.85, including shipping.)
I was also ordering from seed savers. The packets poured in: Granny’s Scarlet Runner bean, Haitian green, New Mexico Cave bean, Genuine Georgia Rattlesnake watermelon, Calico Crowder cowpea, Millhouse Butter bean, Chocolate Sweet pepper, Old Sugar gourd, Self-seeding lettuce, Byrd mustard, Cinnamon vine, Ada soybean, Old Timey melon.
Bulgarian Triumph tomato, Red Sausage tomato, Czar tomato, Truck Gardeners Delight tomato, Geisha tomato, Peron Sprayless tomato, Red Currant tomato, Mule Team tomato, Florida Pink tomato, Climbing tomato, Manasota Volunteer tomato, Super Italian Paste tomato, Dinner Plate tomato, German Pink tomato, Old Handed-down Pink tomato, Arkansas Traveler tomato, Mr. Charlie tomato, Old Brooks tomato, Czech’s Excellent tomato, Florida Basket tomato, Believe It Or Not tomato, Moneymaker tomato, Deweese Streaked tomato, Stone tomato, Firesteel tomato, Yellow Cherry tomato.
Red White and Blue Indian corn, Bachelor Button, Squaw bean, Black Becky bean, Hornet’s Nest gourd, Rice pea, Hopper’s Flower Garden okra, Blacklee watermelon, Aconcagua Sweet pepper, Blue flax, Wahirio tobacco, Listada de Gandia eggplant, Garden huckleberry, Cowhorn turnip.
The garden journal I used that year was a red, hardback appointment book from 1980, a date I scratched through and changed to 1985. On March 9—a Saturday, not a Sunday—I transplanted Bibb and Tom Thumb lettuce. On March 24, I planted Golden Midget sweet corn near the clothesline and two varieties of
I found in the paper where you wanted to know about those candy roasters. I have plenty of those seeds. I raised 13 good ones this year. They sure make a nice pie. I thought I would let you know they are still around.
Bertha Woody
Ellijay, Georgia
P.S. I have a son living in Orlando, Fla.
I’m so glad your Canney Roaster Sweet Potato pumpkins have done so well. And indeed I think they are delicious also. Some people pick very young and fry like yellow squash but I let mine get big and dry and cook like pumpkin. I’ve only had them a few years maybe 6 or 7, but Granny Dills is 86 yrs old and she is who told me they are Canney Roasters and she said she ate them in her younger days so I do not know how old they are. I have never seen it in a catalog but I’ve never looked much either. I got seed from my husband’s first cousin and he called them tater pumpkins. An older relative down the road has relatives in N.C. and he said they raise them up there but they also call them Canney Roasters.
Sincerely,
E. Wise
Dahlonega, Georgia
I saw your letter in the Market Bulletin. I was born in Luthersville. My daddy still lives at Grantville, Ga. It’s down below Newnan. I love all kinds of odd flowers and vegetables. I don’t have a lot of the old-timey vegetables that you wanted. Would send them if I did. I have the peter pepper (hot) and cow horn pepper. I wondered if I sent you the money would you send me a banana tree? Or tell me of a place down there where I could order things like that. I’ve got a pineapple that I started from a pineapple. Also an avacado. Thanks so much.
Love,
Frances Campbell
Paducah, Kentucky
P.S. I was born July 21, 1933.
A friend, Irwin, and I nailed together a one-room, off-the-grid, tarpaper shack in Sycamore. I’ll be generous and call the structure, which was constructed of heart pine planks and two-by-fours recycled from defunct tobacco barns, a cabin. Irwin and I weren’t engineers, much less carpenters. We were youth scoffing at a capitalist society.
Even before the cabin was finished I had a garden started. I planted only open-pollinated varieties, since I wanted to save my own seeds and keep food’s gene pool strong. I was ordering seed from small companies like Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Pinetree Garden Seeds, which marketed inexpensive, family-size packets for the home gardener. (In 1985, sixteen packets cost me $6.85, including shipping.)
I was also ordering from seed savers. The packets poured in: Granny’s Scarlet Runner bean, Haitian green, New Mexico Cave bean, Genuine Georgia Rattlesnake watermelon, Calico Crowder cowpea, Millhouse Butter bean, Chocolate Sweet pepper, Old Sugar gourd, Self-seeding lettuce, Byrd mustard, Cinnamon vine, Ada soybean, Old Timey melon.
Bulgarian Triumph tomato, Red Sausage tomato, Czar tomato, Truck Gardeners Delight tomato, Geisha tomato, Peron Sprayless tomato, Red Currant tomato, Mule Team tomato, Florida Pink tomato, Climbing tomato, Manasota Volunteer tomato, Super Italian Paste tomato, Dinner Plate tomato, German Pink tomato, Old Handed-down Pink tomato, Arkansas Traveler tomato, Mr. Charlie tomato, Old Brooks tomato, Czech’s Excellent tomato, Florida Basket tomato, Believe It Or Not tomato, Moneymaker tomato, Deweese Streaked tomato, Stone tomato, Firesteel tomato, Yellow Cherry tomato.
Red White and Blue Indian corn, Bachelor Button, Squaw bean, Black Becky bean, Hornet’s Nest gourd, Rice pea, Hopper’s Flower Garden okra, Blacklee watermelon, Aconcagua Sweet pepper, Blue flax, Wahirio tobacco, Listada de Gandia eggplant, Garden huckleberry, Cowhorn turnip.
The garden journal I used that year was a red, hardback appointment book from 1980, a date I scratched through and changed to 1985. On March 9—a Saturday, not a Sunday—I transplanted Bibb and Tom Thumb lettuce. On March 24, I planted Golden Midget sweet corn near the clothesline and two varieties of
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