Homegrown: Seed Savers Exchange

Every year, I vow my garden will be better than the last and seed catalogs are one way to cultivate that dream. One of my favorites is the catalog from Seed Savers Exchange, based in Decorah. The photos alone are works of art.

Here is more about the 2012 catalog from Seed Savers:

Next summer, gardeners from around the world will be able to harvest a rare heirloom tomato variety-for sale this year for the first time in North America. Seed Savers Exchange (SSE), the nation's premier seed saving organization located in Decorah, Iowa, is offering the ‘Emmy' tomato in its just-released 2012 catalog.  The ‘Emmy' tomato originated in Transylvania, was transported to Germany at the end of World War II, and was given to an American woman in the 1970s.  She passed it to Seed Savers Exchange in 2005.

Each purchase from the SSE 2012 Catalog helps fund the organization's non-profit preservation efforts-like making the ‘Emmy' tomato available to seed savers and gardeners for generations to come.

The ‘Emmy' is one of more than 600 varieties of heirloom and open-pollinated vegetables, flowers, and herbs offered in this year's catalog. Special offerings include:

• The Heirloom Tomato Collection, featuring the last six winning varieties from the annual Tomato Tasting event at Heritage Farm-and the only place to pick up the 2011 winner, the ‘Dester' tomato.

• The Children's Seed Collection, including four seed packets and My Garden has a Story, a 10-page booklet to help children learn to plant, save seed, and tell their own seed stories.

• New Featured Vegetable Offerings and Varieties, such as Asian greens, endive, salsify, ‘Round Tomato Shaped Pimento' pepper, ‘Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri' cucumber, ‘Ruby King' pepper, ‘Mantilia' lettuce ‘Roy's Calais Flint' corn, ‘Chersonskaya' squash, and ‘Oh So Sweet' watermelon.

The 2012 SSE Catalog offers ‘new' varieties with old stories!

SSE received the ‘Emmy' tomato in 2005 from a seed saver in Oregon. Her letter included a few seeds and one amazing story:

October 20, 2005

 Dear Seed Savers Exchange,

My friend Emmy was born in Transylvania which used to belong to Hungary. At the end of WW II she was expelled (she was of German descent) and had to leave her house. As she left in the fall of 1945, she grabbed a tomato, managed to keep it throughout the arduous journey into Germany and kept planting the seeds of her Transylvanian tomato.

I met Emmy in 1978 in Rosenheim, Germany and when we left in 1979, Emmy gave me some seeds of her Transylvanian tomato. I have planted this tomato every year, first in Eugene, Oregon, and then in Tigard, Oregon. The tomato is yellow, does not grow very large (at least in my garden), and has a very intensive tomato flavor. If you wish, you may name the tomato Emmy! Good luck!

- E. B.

Seed Savers Exchange, is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds. Since 1975, our members have been passing on our garden heritage by collecting and distributing thousands of samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners.

SOURCE Seed Savers Exchange

www.seedsavers.org |

Request a copy of the SSE 2012 Catalog