This morning, while pulling weeds from the first garden bed we renovated when we moved into our new home , I found myself taking a very long pause. "This weed smell pretty good, even familiar", I thought to myself. What I thought were weeds were actually arugula greens.
This is pretty common around here in our gardens. Just last week while pulling "weeds" from the newly expanded strawberry patch, low and behold there were tiny heads of heirloom lettuce popping up. Let's not forget the volunteer tomato plants that sprung up throughout the garden last summer - I never know what kind of fruits I would get.
As many of you know, this is the case when you garden with heirloom varieties of your favorite veggies. When you plant heirlooms, the seeds they produce when replanted, will produce plants true to type. This is not the case for their hybrid counterparts. If you try to replant then, chances are that if they even sprout,what you get will not be what you had originally or they will produce poorly.
Heirloom seeds are good for the local environment. They are open-pollinated - a great thing for local bee communities. Being that they have not been genetically modified in any way, we know they will not ply a part in the collapsing of beneficial insects as many believe hybrid varieties may do.
Heirlooms are adaptive. When you save seed from varieties that you use in your garden year after year, you will be surprised on how well they do warding off pests and infestations. On a purely social level, heirloom seed oftentimes have deep historical roots, both in families and communities, as they have been saved and passed down sometimes for generations. When sharing the seeds, we share the stories of loved ones who came before , helping to keep generational ties strong.
Sure, many argue that heirloom plants do not produce as heavily as the hybrid varieties. This is true. Hybrid seed was engineered to assist the commercial grower who has a goal of quantity over quality. Take the tomato for example. Most are harvested while green, gassed in order to ripen and have been bred to withstand thousands of miles of travel.
The average home gardeners goal is not to load tractor trailers full of our crops and haul it anywhere. Our goal is to savor the ripe, juicy flavor of tomatoes we have watched grow from mere transplants. Our goal is to share with our neighbors the best tasting eggplants, peppers, melons, basil's, gooseberries, strawberries and peaches they have ever tasted.
I suspect we heirloom gardeners have yet other reasons behind our passion. We are thrifty. We know that we can save the seed from our most beloved garden varieties and replant them year after year. Wow, growing spring and summer gardens and it didn't cost us anything except time, kitchen compost and a little labor?
We love success. We don't want to waste our time, money or energy on plants that don't grow well in our areas - another reason we save seed and begin with heirloom veggie starters.
Perhaps we are also a little rebellious. Perhaps we are tired of seeing the most fundamental and basic of human needs , food [all the way down to the genetic blue print - the seed] being re-engineered and manipulated - usually for profit at the expense of another.
Perhaps we have had it with the fact so much of our life is more manufactured than authentic. Take taste for example. It's a pretty sad fact that if a child were to only eat strawberries, tomatoes, peaches or plums purchased at the grocery store, they would never have actually tasted them at all. They would have never enjoyed the authentic fragrance of these aromatic wonders. As an adult, when they smell the sweet smell of summer fruit will they magically be transported back to childhood as nothing like scent can do? I wonder.
We gardeners know that gardens are about more than food! They are a place we can go to and let our senses be transported - forgetting the worries of the moment. They are places where we spend time with our loved ones. They are places where we can build our emotional, physical and psychological health. They are places where traditions are made and then handed down to further generations. They are places where we adults can still find surprise ,magic and abundance . Above all else, they are a place where when we let go, we find that the weeds in our life may actually be gifts from nature for us to enjoy.
Happy day to all!
Carrie-Anne
Grower, Rolling Hills Herbs & Annuals
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