Seed Swap

Last Saturday on my way to the college library, I passed through an area where a conference on sustainable farming was taking place. Everyone was in session, so I wandered around and looked at the exhibits and came to the seed swap table.

Seed swapping is such a great idea. Unfortunately, not a lot of people save seeds. I’m not a confident seed-saver, though I’ve had good luck with arugula and mizuna and, of course, dill. I mostly don’t save seed because I figure I don’t have time to mess around in the garden. I want “certified” good seed! Squash seeds are easy to keep, but there’s too much of a danger of cross-pollination. Same with beans.

But when I have saved seed, I always have a ton of it. It’s incredible how much seed comes from a single lettuce plant. I can mix it with other greens and just sow liberally.

I probably wasn’t supposed to take seed from these tables (it did say you didn’t have to bring seed to take seed, but I wasn’t registered for the conference). Still, it also seemed like the kind of conference where everyone was welcome! It won’t go to waste!

I just couldn’t resist the paper bag that said, “Cool Old Squash.” It was at a table run by the White Earth Seed Library, who also had brochures inviting us to take their amazing heirloom seeds for free. They are located on the White Earth Ashinabe/Ojibwe Indian reservation. The library works by having you save seed from the plants you grow and send back twice as many seeds as you received. They also had a huge basket of sunflower seeds and some mason jars of other seeds.

I took a few of the cool old squash seeds and will let you know what comes of them this summer. They appear to be the seeds described in the brochure. “Recently we were given a few seeds from a squash that was dated at 850 years! These seeds were found in a clay ball near the Minnesota/Wisconsin border in an archeological dig. We have grown out these seeds for the last two years, and now have plenty of seeds to share. You will surely give your family and friends a gift if they see this beautiful and delicious squash on their plate.”

Here’s what the website says about them:

REALLY COOL OLD SQUASH – Gete-okosomin – CM-RCOS01
I placed this squash as a cucurbita maxima for three reasons. One is that this squash shares many of the traits of a banana squash which is in this group. The second is that on the Callaway farm, the squash seemed to have crossed with a hubbard, also from this classification (we did not save those seeds). Third is that “giant” squash comes typically from this group, and this fruit gets very huge. The seeds were found in a clay pot in an archeological dig in Minnesota near the Wisconsin border aged at 850 years old.

At the end of the season, if all goes well, I’ll send back some “cool old squash” seeds to the library.

One thing I missed in my last seed order was daikon radish. Now that I’m making kimchi, I do need to grow some large radish. So I made a little packet of those seeds from another area, along with some lettuce seeds, which were plentiful.

It was still below zero this morning. I am shocked to find we have adapted to it somehow.  People just go about their business. I forgot my hat this morning, and my ears froze on the way to the post office. We’re just now starting to whine about it, which is OK because we know the end is near. The days are already light until 6 p.m. and there is news of warm weather by the middle of next week. If I can just get my hands on some leek seeds, I’ll be ready to get operations going in the basement in a week or two…