Who Writes the Seed Catalog Descriptions? 
 Right off the bat I'm going to tell you that I (Farmer John) write these heirloom seed catalog descriptions.  Now that we have gotten that out of the way let me tell you I have only been gardening for about 32 years.  That is the personal experience I have to draw on when writing these vegetable seed catalog descriptions.  I did work at a nursery and later own a nursery.  I've listened to thousands of peoples questions and comments over the years.  What else do I draw on?  Well, that has been a bit of a quandary for me when starting this company's vegetable seed catalog.  I am an information nut, whether that be old seed catalogs, dusty books or the volumes of text on the intranet I love searching through them.  I use this information on our website.  In fact you will find I'm trying to quote other heirloom seed sources in the descriptions so that you have another perspective.  With more information I hope you will be able to make the best choices for your taste and organic growing conditions.  This is why I've designed all the little icons you will see.  These will quickly and easily point out valuable heirloom seed catalog information.

Experience  Now you may point out how can I describe a vegetable in a seed catalog if I've never grown it?  Well that is just it!  Unless you are Luther Burbank or in your 90s there seems little way else to assimilate ALL this information.  For instance, I've been growing loads of tomatoes since I was about seven years old.  I know a great deal about tomatoes, but I dislike the taste of most raw tomatoes.  Cooked or sauteed tomatoes I love, but I rarely enjoy a raw tomato if it has a high acid content.  How am I going to tell you what it taste like then in the seed catalog description?  I can't, I can merely describe to you what others think and even that seems highly subjective. 

Seed Growing Conditions  Then we get to the area of growing conditions.  Not only will this heirloom seeds catalog reach the corners of the U.S., but it will reach the globe.  How the heck do I tell someone in Ireland if a variety may do well for them?  Honestly, even with copious notes in our trials gardens, meetings with our growers and assimilating data there is still no way to tell someone how to grow something successfully.  This has always fallen to the magic of gardening.  You take the best information you have and try it out!  There have been many years when I couldn't get a particular variety to perform and then one small comment from an old timer incorporated into my method...then bam success!

Even more interesting are regional conditions.   It seemed I could never grow broccoli well when I lived in the warm expanse of Texas, but now that I'm in California it grows like a weed almost year round.  Conversely, I took for granted growing corn in the hot Texas soil.  Here we are influenced by the cool Pacific winds so corn is a real challenge.   Then there are the new global conditions or global warming.  I kind of laugh (or cry) now when I look at the USDA zone map.  This map is suppose to tell you when the first and last frost are coming.  It also tells you the historic average highs and lows.  THROW THAT OUT THE WINDOW!  Welcome to global warming.  Our weather now is much too erratic to predict such things any longer and scientist say it is only going to get worse.  If you have been gardening a while you know what I'm talking about.  The rules have changed. 

Summation  So you see I can only share with you what I personally know, what other sources I have found and other links to information.  It is truly like reading a book.  A book was written by an author.  An author may draw on many things, but it is still her/his opinion.  I learned this long ago, there are not absolute truths in this worlds.  However, that makes it exciting to me!  Each one of us holds the experiences of a lifetime.  Just like little peas in a pod each one holds a different genetic story.  The way that story unfolds is totally unique.  Your experiences in life and gardening are unique.

No Printed Seed Catalog: We only offer an on-line catalog.  Catalog retailers send out 20 billion catalogs a year, and almost none of the paper contains any recycled content. Instead, over 8 million tons of trees a year go into catalogs alone—which means 8 million tons of trees are going from forests to the landfill, with a short appearance as junk mail in between.  What does that mean? 

1 ton of virgin printing paper for catalogs uses 24 trees.  Now take the number above of 8 million tons used a year and you get 192,000,000 trees that are killed every year so you can thumb through a catalog!! That is roughly 640,000 acres of trees and forest ecosystems destroyed JUST for catalogs.  How in good conscious could we or anyone participate in this behavior? 

To put that into perspective, that is almost the entire state of Rhode Island being cut down every year for paper catalogs.  These are not just trees, but entire ecosystems of living beings that are destroyed for catalogs.  Then there is the pollution from paper mills.    Pulp and paper is the third largest industrial polluter to air, water, and land in both Canada and the United States, and releases well over 100 million kg of toxic pollution each year (National Pollutant Release Inventory, 1996).

Our mission to green the planet, not de-green it.  We will not be a part of this irresponsible behavior.  Yes, we might lose some customers to this policy, but someone has to take the first step in making a change.  We are NOT driven by the dollar but by our consciousness and the knowledge that human beings can do better in the world.  Our company vows to leave the smallest footprint possible on this planet as possible.  In fact we hope to green more than we take.  We are after all a seed company!

In fact most of the book publishers we buy from are a part of the Green Press Initiative.  The goal of the Green Press Initiative is to help those in the book and newspaper industries better understand their impacts on endangered forests, indigenous communities, and the Earth's climate. GPI also works with those in the industry to implement solutions, and to provide the tools and resources necessary to support industry transformation.


Old Seed Catalogs:  Help!  We need your help.  Old seed catalogs, books, mag azines, journals, seed packages, pictures, etc... contain valuable information important to seed preservation.  PLEASE, the next time you are cleaning out the attic do not throw this stuff out.  Please consider donating to our preservation library.   This type of information is invaluable to us.  It helps us to understand how a variety grew say 100 years ago, what were it's characteristics, what the name was and how that might have changed over the years.  You see seed preservation can be a tricky thing.  How do we know that the "Fordhook Lima" that we have today was the same one they had three generations ago?  Keeping seeds true to their heritage starts with understanding what the characteristics were associated with that variety.  Trade magazines or family journals of plant breeders are invaluable in helping us to understand how a particular plant may have been created. 

Here in Santa Rosa California we are lucky to have so much of Luther Burbank's work preserved by thoughtful folks that protected this information, but there are many other folks out there that may not have been so famous.  

For instance, we recently heard a story of a family who brought a particularly well suited bean from Italy to California during the gold rush.  This particular bean was responsible for helping feed the gold miners during the California Gold Rush.  We want to know these stories whether verbal or written.  Maybe your family has handed down a certain tomato variety for years and you have pictures of "Grandma Jenny" with the first tomato plant.  That is history to us!  Please share a copy or an original.  This is all an important part of seed preservation. 




We Want You to Share Your Seed Growing Experience  This is where you come in!  We want you to share your knowledge with the world!  We have purposely chosen this software package so that you may leave comments on each variety.  In fact I'm going to encourage you to do this by monthly selecting a random comment (author) and giving them a $25 gift certificate!  Next year we will take the most descriptive comments and add them to both our on-line vegetable seed catalog and next years paper seed catalog.  You could see your name in print!  It is easy, below every listed heirloom seed variety you will see a field to leave you comment.  Be sure to put your full name and state so we can track you down in our database if you win our monthly drawing!

Thank you so much for your interest in our little heirloom seeds company.  Please email me any questions about heirloom seeds or comments on how you think we can better server you.