Original post from Bifurcated Carrots
This is a cross posting, also available at La Vida Locavore. For my regular readers, please bear with the somewhat introductory nature. Those of you who do regularly read this blog may want to check out some of the other posts on La Vida Locavore.
For me heirloom gardening is all about getting away from the mentality of growing things from a purchased packet of seeds. If you do grow plants from purchased seeds, you are always better off saving your own seeds if possible because with every generation they adapt to your garden, a process you can help along by being a little choosy with the plants you save seeds from.
Even better than starting with purchased seeds are those you can’t buy, and can only get for free or perhaps a small payment to cover shipping and handling costs. These might be plants growing wild somewhere, where someone has gone out and collected some seeds for you. Perhaps these are varieties someone has created in their own garden with amateur plant breeding techniques. You might spend the time to make contacts at academic institutions or seed banks, and find things in these collections or perhaps know someone who has already done this and can get some saved seeds from them. Even easier than saving seeds every year is to establish perennial plants in your garden, those that come back providing tasty things to eat each year.
Keep reading to see pictures and descriptions of a few of the plants I’m growing this year.
Read the rest of this post HERE.
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