Dreaming of Spring

I finally sat myself down yesterday and started looking through all the seed catalogs that come to my mailbox. Usually this happens in February, but somehow it took March's sunny weather to convince me that spring was actually going to come again this year. I looked through 5 or 6 glossy colorful catalogs, marveling not only at the fancy display but also at the high prices per packet. And then I came across my favorite seed company's catalog: Fedco. And yet again, my search stopped there. Everything would come from Fedco again this year. I love its philosophy, its detailed descriptions of plants and their known history, the company's cooperative practices, their acknowledgements of the folks who developed certain varieties, and especially the beautiful drawings on every page. There are no photos. The paper is not glossy, and the illustrations are all black and white line drawings of superlative quality, many on each page. When I started looking at the Fedco catalog, I relaxed, took a deep breath, and settled in. It felt like going home.

This season always reminds me of the magic of seeds. And the more I think about seeds, the more amazed I am. It's easy to take these tiny treasure-houses for granted, and yet they are an incredible invention of early plants on the earth 100 million years ago. Not only did the seed make it possible for a plant to continue another year. A seed also required two parents. The flowers evolved to require fertilization by another plant, and our pollinators evolved to supply that service, at the same time getting something in return. What an elegant arrangement! And with two parents, seeds had the chance to evolve. The genetic composition was always in flux, and the most successful "children" survived best.  

Plants and seeds evolved for millions of years before humans came on the scene. Once we arrived, we supplemented our hunter/gatherer diet with a variety of plant products. And eventually by choosing our favorite fruits from which to save seed and perhaps unintentionally breeding one variety with another, we came up with plants that were more what we wanted: they were bigger, or hardier, or sweeter, or easier to digest. Gradually humans and some plants co-evolved. Probably most of the plants we see in our seed catalogs are of this kind, especially vegetables. Now those particular plants need humans to survive. They would not be able to fend for themselves in the wild untamed places on earth. That's interesting to me! 

For centuries, whenever people had to move, one of the treasures they were sure to carefully take along to the new home was a parcel of seeds that they had saved year after year, seeds that would allow them to grow their food. Some folks still save seeds, but it has become less common since all we have to do is order from the many seed companies these days.

I love being able to do that, to look at the Fedco catalog and see how many varieties of plants I can choose from. And Fedco has many non-mainstream varieties that are not found in other catalogs, some that have been saved by families over the years, seeds that represent varieties that have not been championed by the main seed companies. As a sort of rebel myself, I like this. And what I am beginning to discover is that in the last 100 years, the kinds of seeds available to us has been severely depleted. In fact, one researcher studied seed company offerings in 1903 and found that 94% of the seeds are no longer available. Only 6% have survived! I imagine that many new varieties have been developed by seed scientists, so the total number of varieties has probably not diminished. But it is of concern that open-pollinated plants, plants that are not hybrids, are declining dramatically. There is a stunning lack of diversity in these plants now, and scientists tell us that this is asking for trouble. Biodiversity is our friend when disease or climatic conditions threaten some of the mainstays of food production.  

So yes, it is good to be aware that since we seldom save our seeds anymore, and since the seeds of a few varieties have been chosen to do best and sell best, we may be more susceptible to the threat of biodiversity depletion and species collapse. That's sobering. Yet I'm not going to let it daunt my enthusiasm about the miracle of seeds. We put these tiny things in damp soil and then watch as they are able to come to life, to push up above the ground, to reach up to the sun. Using sunlight, water and minerals from the soil, they generate what they need to grow, and at the same time put oxygen into the air so that we can survive too. What elegance!