Like most gardeners, you’ll probably spend a lot of time this winter thumbing through seed catalogs filled with “new and improved” cultivars, many of them fresh from the laboratory. Look in the Seed Savers Exchange catalog, however, and you won’t find any exciting new plants. What you will find are thousands of seed varieties that your great-grandparents may have grown 100 years ago.

But then, Seed Savers Exchange is not a typical seed company. It’s a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving and promoting heirloom vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers. From its unheralded beginning in 1975 with a group of six interested heirloom gardeners, Seed Savers now has a membership of 8,000 and has become one of the most influential forces in the burgeoning heirloom seed movement.

Preserving Memories
Seed Savers Exchange was co-founded by Kent and Diane Whealy after Diane’s grandfather gave the couple some seeds from a rare morning glory plant distinguished by small purple flowers with a red star in their throats. “My grandfather had these morning glories planted in front of the porch, and each year he would train them on twine to grow into some shape, such as a window pane,” explains Diane. It turns out Diane’s great-grandparents had brought the plants to America from Bavaria in the 1870s. When Diane’s grandfather passed away the following spring, the Whealys came to the sobering realization that if they had not taken those seeds and planted them, this family heirloom could have been lost forever.

This sentimental attachment to family history—coupled with a concern over the steady erosion of genetic diversity that was occurring because the seed industry was being subsumed by a few large corporations—led Kent and Diane to search for other gardeners who were interested in preserving heirloom seeds. As their network grew, Diane says, “We realized that no other group was doing what we were doing,” and Seed Savers Exchange was born.

Since that time, the exchange has gathered an amazing number of seed varieties. About 18,000 rare fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs are now maintained at Heritage Farm, the exchange’s 170-acre property in Decorah, Iowa. Among these are 4,000 varieties of tomatoes, including six varieties of black tomatoes from the former Soviet Union. “These were a great find,” says Kent. “There’s an enzyme under the skin that keeps turning the tomatoes darker and darker in the sun and heat. They’re very unique.” Another favorite is the ‘Moon and Stars’ watermelon, a legendary melon that exhibits pea-sized yellow “stars” and a larger yellow “moon” on its dark green skin.

As the exchange’s seed listings grew, it became apparent something had to be done. “The catalog was getting so big that it was unmanageable,” says Kent. So, in 1990, the Whealys separated their offerings into two groups. Now Seed Savers Exchange focuses on rare fruits and vegetables—its 1998 yearbook was a whopping 460 pages featuring 11,000 varieties. The smaller Flower and Herb Exchange includes an impressive list of 3,000 old-time flowers and herbs in its ’98 yearbook, including the flower that started it all—Grandpa Ott’s morning glory. Another rare, heirloom favorite is the old-fashioned vining petunia (Petunia multiflora), a low growing annual with delicate pastel blooms that emit a sweet fragrance at dusk.

A Diverse Membership
If you become a Seed Savers Exchange member—annual dues are currently $30—you’ll receive the Seed Savers yearbook, which lists seeds currently available from other members. You can then place your order with the member who offers the seeds, paying a nominal fee for postage. In turn, it is hoped that members will grow out and offer their own heirloom or unusual seeds.

But you don’t have to be a member of Seed Savers Exchange or the Flower and Herb Exchange to purchase their seeds. Seed Savers offers a limited number of varieties grown at Heritage Farm through its free catalog, and some retail outlets carry the organization’s seeds. Those who become actively involved in the exchange, however, say they feel a great satisfaction knowing they are doing something to help preserve these heirloom plants.

Darrell Merrell of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has been a Seed Savers member since 1994. Merrell learned about the exchange while caring for a terminally ill family member. “During that time, my only outlet was reading and gardening,” he explains. “But when I started looking for the varieties of plants I had grown as a child, I found that they weren’t commercially available anymore.” Seed Savers was the only source for the plants he was looking for.

Since then, Merrell has become one of the exchange’s most active members, offering 221 different seed varieties this year alone. “I get a deeper satisfaction with this than anything I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “We can’t depend on the government to save our seeds. It’s up to individual gardeners to preserve the genetic diversity that thousands of gardeners have given us over the centuries.”

John Swenson, a seed collector living in Glenview, Illinois, praises the Seed Savers’ staff for its “remarkable commitment.” Swenson has traveled the world collecting plants, and at one time he had one of the largest collections of garlic in the world. Yet despite his numerous plant expeditions, he discovered Seed Savers was the only source for many of the varieties he grew. “There is just a wealth of plant material there,” he says. “It’s impossible to have a boring garden if you’re a member of Seed Savers.”

Kent and Diane are thrilled to see there has also been a resurgence of public interest in heirloom plants. “We’ve been doing this long before it was popular,” says Diane. “Now we get 10,000 to 15,000 requests a year for information on heirloom gardening. It’s very exciting.” With the recent discovery of ways to genetically manipulate crops so they will produce sterile seeds, public interest in seed preservation and heirloom gardening is sure to increase even further. “Seed Savers has a sense of responsibility to the future of the human race and the planet,” says Swenson. “They are much more than just a big seed catalog.”

Christina M. Scott is assistant editor of The American Gardener.