Plant Your Own Heirlooms

We're all accustomed to seeing heirloom vegetables at farmers' markets, but now they're cropping up in America's backyards. Last year, the White House and 7 million other U.S. homes got new kitchen gardens, many planted with heirloom seeds. In 2009, heirloom seed sales increased by 40 percent. "People want to save money," says George DeVault of Iowa-based heirloom seed purveyor Seed Savers Exchange. "But they also are concerned about where their food comes from and how it's grown." Heirloom means being from a species at least 50 years old, or being open-pollinated--i.e., the seeds produce offspring like the parent plants. The Edible Heirloom Garden author Rosalind Creasy says the "late blight" that nearly decimated northeastern tomatoes in 2009 (a strain of which also caused the Irish potato famine) could have been lessened if people had grown tomatoes from seeds or seedlings, including heirloom varieties, from nonindustrial sources, rather than planting big-box-store seedlings infected with blight. To find out more, go to Seed Savers Exchange, Seeds of Change, and Native Seeds. For seedlings, try your local farmers' markets.
--Carolynn Carreno

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