#seedkeeping

[retoxx]

xwaskwiim held in community

[seedkeeping]

Ewa Oloyin (Honey Bean) seeds now available at www.trueloveseeds.com! I first learned of these delicious beans when @vivianeleokojie sent me a wonderful package of seeds of important vegetables from Nigeria. I later found them in huge quantities for cooking at one of our local West African groceries in West Philly. For the past couple of years we have been growing our original seed stock with love to acclimate them to our farm and increase them in order to share them with you. Here’s the description: Known as Ewa Oloyin in Yuruba, these sweet and creamy “cowpeas” are a staple in Nigeria where they are cooked in a spicy tomato sauce, sometimes with palm oil, onion, and crawfish. They can be used to make Akara (bean fritters), Moi-Moi (bean pudding), and Gbegiri (bean soup). They are high in protein and fiber. We first learned about these and received seeds from our seed penpal Vivien Elebiyo-Okojie, a Nigerian “Entrepreneur and Food Conversationalist” living in Ohio. Also known as Oloying and Brown Bean. #seedkeeping #ewaoloyin #oloyinbeans #honeybeans https://www.instagram.com/p/CZfATp0OdhE/?utm_medium=tumblr

[balkanradfem]

So I tested my carrot seeds and they're germinating at an excellent rate! I put them in a wet paper towel and kept them in a bag, only 5 days later it was already filled with white sprouts, it's awesome. Usually carrot seeds take about 10-15 days to activate, I was surprised by the speed.

I have been, against all advice, recklessly taking seeds from plants that are hybrids, and to explain what this means, I have to go deeper into seed heritage. So there are two types of seeds you can currently buy, it's heirlooms, and hybrids. Heirloom seeds grow into plants that you can collect seeds from, and get the exact same plant, with the same characteristics, granted it didn't cross-polinate with something else. Hybrid seeds come from a genetic mix of plants, and if you take the seed, it will not be the same plant anymore. Hybrids are usually good for production, or have something about them that is convenient to the grower – they might be resistant to disease, or resistant to pests, they might be resistant to high or low temperatures, the fruit might have special taste or color, or otherwise can be stored for a long time.

However, when you take the seed from a hybrid plant, it will not produce the same plant, it might get some genetic material from the mix the first plant was made from, but you cannot know for sure what kind of plant you're getting. It's unlikely to produce the same type of fruit.

Most seeds I see sold in the stores are hybrids, I don't know if it's to prevent people from getting the same plants every year without buying the seed, or because these hybrids are specially calibrated to succeed in our climate. Most plants you buy at greenhouses also come from hybrid seeds, meaning seed collected from these plants will be unknown variety. You can, however, buy heirlooms in special seed stores, or order them online.

All heirlooms start as hybrids, in fact, if you wanted to invent a new variety of a plant, you'd have to start by cross-polinating two plants and getting the hybrid seed. It takes many years to stabilize this type of seed, and turn it into heirloom, a plant that would give you a seed with same characteristic, I think it counts as heirloom after it's been around and stabilized for 30-50 years. So hybrids aren't bad, only unstable and unpredictable, and most people who are serious about growing food aren't going to take risks and will buy the seed that will give them the exact plant they need.

Me, however, I got plenty of time to mess around, and I've been taking seeds out of hybrids left and right. Every single pepper I planted was from a hybrid seed, and I never get the peppers that are same shape, size, or grow at same pace as the original variety, but, they are still extremely good! A bit smaller but sweet and tasty, nothing I could possibly complain about. So I felt very encouraged to take the seeds out of a hybrid broccoli plant, and now I'm taking some from a completely unidentified carrot that happened to be growing in the garden before that spot was mine. This winter I'm planning to grow just a ton of broccoli, carrots, celery, parsley, cabbage and kale and everything except for kale comes from seeds I collected from hybrids, so every plant will be a surprise! I only hope they taste good, and I can handle everything else. These self-collected seeds are germinating so fast, I couldn't believe when my broccoli seeds sprouted from the soil in only 2 days. That is just a good gardening experience. Can't wait to see what I get from these plants.

[glasshalffullurbanfarm]

So helpful!

[rooted-and-reaching]

I have to seperate a walmart bag full of kale seeds and another full of carrot seeds. Any tips on how to do that without it taking a millions years??

[seedkeeping]

It’s pretty surreal to see Truelove Seeds featured in a magazine I grew up seeing on my grandma Letty’s coffee tables. If only she was here to see this AND read her own grandma’s name (Leticia Truelove) in print. Our work is so much bigger than Chris and me: so many other people (including @cryptogam_ @ainbaz @sarastaylor @claykitchenstudio @honnih @sa__a__a @sistahseeds and countless apprentices, seed growers, and community partners/friends) spend their days and energies and inspirations making Truelove what it is through stewarding their beloved ancestral varieties and making them available to gardeners and farmers far and wide. That said, this is a lovely design and a good write-up, and it’s a real honor to grace the pages of this historic issue alongside some of our other favorite seed companies! #seedkeeping @betterhomesandgardens (at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChbC0UCOBJE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[seedkeeping]

@therealmaryjblige is the meanest part of this American Gothic 😂 Chiamaka and Rocky with their Lumper Potato harvest. It was their first time lifting potatoes! This was the potato of the Great Hunger in Ireland, one that I grow to remember my great grandmother Mary Lenihan and her potato farming family in Galway. Of course, potatoes originate in the Andes where they were first domesticated and where their diversity is still the greatest. They made their way to Ireland as a field crop in the seventeenth century and became a staple in the eighteenth. #seedkeeping #lumperpotato (at Glen Mills, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/CgYESJQuTUX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[seedkeeping]

Odell’s White Watermelon, sizing up, with morning dew. Odell's Large White Watermelon fruits are gigantic with sweet, pink, juicy flesh, light green skin, and white seeds (though not very many). The rinds are tender, almost as sweet as the flesh, and great for pickling. While watermelons were first domesticated in Africa, this is one of few that are known to be a variety connected to a particular African American person, who in this case is an unnamed man who selected this variety during or before the 1840s on a plantation in Pomaria, SC. Our original seed came from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Theirs came from Rodger Winn whose wife Karen Metzes's family has stewarded this melon since 1880. Our former coworker Amirah Mitchell advocated for us to include this variety at our farm this year. Amirah is also growing this variety for our catalog at her new farm project, Sistah Seeds, among dozens of other seed crops important to Africans and African Americans in the diaspora. #seedkeeping @sistahseeds (at Glen Mills, Pennsylvania) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgxstxxuej-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=