I received an email a few days ago from Seed Savers (SSE). This is what I read:
How are you doing? If you were able to plant seeds this year, were they for food, or beauty, or both? Did your garden, whether a large plot or a small community space or a windowsill, bring you peace, joy, and nourishment? Did you save any seeds, or share them? I would love to hear about your experiences this year, and how you are finding ways to connect to the seeds and to the people around you.
Instantly I was transported back in time to earlier this year, when in Michigan, lottery tickets and alcohol were essential items, and seeds were considered non-essential items by our governor. Right then and there I was grateful I am a seed saver. I laughed at the idiocy which made me want to cry, and I planted my rebellious garden with a quiet gratefulness that I had learned about SSE nearly 20 years ago.I grew up on my grandparents' farm, born the same year SSE came into existence. Now and again I find pictures of gardens past on the farm, but it was a dwindling farm by the time I was around. My grandparents were in their 50s when I was born, and ten years earlier they had fallen victim to the destruction of the dairy farmer the State of Michigan so strongly desired. When I was a kid, we had pigs and beef cattle, Polled Herefords for those who care. On the land that wasn't pasture Grandpa grew hay, wheat, corn, and Maple Arrow soybeans (the last few years.) And of course, there was The Garden.
I tried to mark the estimated location of The Garden, but if you look closely, you can still see the marks.
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In my mind I can still see it. Pear trees on the fence line. The barbed wire twisted into the trunk of one of the trees from one of the tornadoes that went through. Green peppers. Eggplant. Tomatoes. Chucking rotten tomatoes over the fence line towards the tower line. Beets. Green beans... the never-ending row of green beans. The rhubarb we got from Uncle Norman, beautiful large plants.
I was about 10 years old when I wanted to be a farmer like my grandpa, and he told me there was no future in farming. I believed him even while it hurt to hear that, but knowing my grandpa, I'm sure it hurt him to say it. He was an old-type farmer, where 80 acres was enough until government got involved. He was right. Just a couple years later when I was 12, the State of Michigan began another major assault on rural Michigan. I remember 7th grade well because everyone talked about taxes doubling and tripling overnight. The two major topics among my classmates were taxes and the Richmond Community Schools trying to kill busing for parochial school students (of which I was one.) (That was also the same year U2's The Joshua Tree came out. Just sayin'.)
Rural area in the 1980s, folks. Even the kids understood more than most politicians today.
We never saved seeds. I only remember hearing my grandpa say, "You can't save seeds," and I remember Grandma said it was too hard to grow tomato plants from seed. Years later, after I had learned otherwise, I asked Grandpa why he always said "you couldn't save seed" because I was. He looked at me with that look I knew so well ("how dumb can you be"), and said, "It was all hybrid seed." (Diane Ott Whealy does an excellent job in her book Gathering: Memoir of a Seed Saver talking about the issues in the 70s and 80s.)
The garden on the septic field, 1976. Even at a year old you knew where I would be!
In the last few years, as I have been trying to rebuild any knowledge of what my family would have traditionally grown, my mom has been some help. With her help, I know that one great-grandma grew Victor tomatoes and some peas of some sort. (The seeds she saved were probably thrown out after her death.) The other great-grandpa favored Burpee's Stringless green beans, which were grown until no one could get seed any longer. (I remember Blue Lake something-or-the-other. One number was OK, the other not.) My grandpa, however, gave me the most clues to figure out what seeds would have been grown. He told me, when I asked what varieties we grew back when, that he didn't remember but Ferry Morse was good seed. ("Well, it used to be," he said.) Thanks to Internet Archive a few years ago, I found a whole collection of Ferry Morse catalogues. They were from Detroit originally -- and our farms were all just north of there. (Erin Twp, Clinton Twp, Sterling Twp, Lenox Twp. Don't ask what they look like now.) But anyway, thanks to those catalogues and the descriptions, I was able to figure out the Victor tomato. It's something, anyway.
So what about "dark winters"? Well, 20-some minutes ago, while I write this, Michigan is "Pausing", not in lockdown. Not yet. We have a vindictive governor. Give her time. That said, other than screwing up my son's ability to take Woodshop 2 in high school and the economic issues, I'm not too worried about a "long, dark winter." I find winters are way too short to do what I need to, and it won't be long before I'm starting seeds in the house. (I stocked up on what I needed for when seed-starting supplies are deemed "non-essential" again.) Besides, Internet Archive has many more seed catalogues. So many old catalogues, so little time. Last year I got into trouble with the Isbell Seeds catalogues from Jackson, MI, and found a kick-tail tomato called Golden Colossal. If you are reading this, you really need to check out a tomato so popular it lasted 30 years in the catalogues...
Take it from someone who is expendable. Don't fear a long, dark winter -- read a seed catalogue!
2020's garden in June. From 80 acres to less than one, between two gas companies. It proved that 2020 wasn't all bad!
