Replacing the Term Organic

In my previous post I talked about organic seeds. Now I’m going to say some things about the term organic in general. In North America and most of the rest of the world organic is now a legally regulated term. In most cases it can only be used as part of a certification program. This certification program is very expensive, involves a lot of unnecessary paperwork and is designed to discourage farmers from saving and regrowing their own seeds. It’s time we as consumers learn to stop putting so much value into this term, and in fact we should really be a bit suspicious when it is used. The concept of organic is one we should embrace, but we should start getting used to other words being used to describe the concept.

Mike of Tiny Farm Blog recently posted about a new certification he is taking on, ‘Certified Natural’. In Europe the term ‘biological’ has the same meaning as organic, and is often used. Mike is considering giving up his organic certification.

The term Organic is increasingly becoming synonymous with factory farm and mass marketed products. While it does mean most pesticides and chemical fertilizers were not used, there are few guarantees anymore and it’s clear the system of certification hurts rather than helps small farmers. Certified organic products are certainly something to consider avoiding when not directly associated with a small farmer or if non-certified alternatives that were also produced without chemicals are also available.

Disappointed By Organic Seeds

Laura of Mas Du Diable recently posted about her disappointment with several orders of seeds received from Chase Organics in the UK.

This company’s use of the word “Organic” is almost humorous, a bit like they think their customers are stupid. First the name of the company Chase Organics. Then their URL, http://www.organiccatalog.com When you load their web page, the title is The Organic Gardening Catalogue. Across the top of the page it says:

The catalogue for organic and environmentally friendly gardeners – organic seeds for vegetables, heritage and modern varieties…

When you finally get down to the Sweetie Corn that Laura purchased, in very small letters is says “(non-organic)”. These are seeds that arrived in a shrivelled state and ended up having less than a 50% rate of germination.

You would think a company that sells “heritage and modern varieties”, according to their blurb across the front of their website would tell you the true nature of their seeds, but they sent Laura F1 seeds in spite of there being no mention of hybrid seeds on the website.

Laura had a similar problem is a previous order where she ordered seeds for an heritage pumpkin variety with the intention of saving seeds. Without asking her permission or informing her, they sent her a different F1 variety instead. Is sending an email in these circumstances really all that hard?

We are all supposed to feel good about a company like this, one that uses the word “Organic” to the point they are truly patronizing their customers. A company that seems somehow to be associated with the HDRA and HSL (both organizations connected with heritage seeds collections and seed saving), and that advertises they sell heritage seeds. Don’t be fooled!

Christina of Calendula and Concrete pointed out in a post that 98% of the world’s seed used to grow food come from one of six companies: Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Mitsui, Aventis, and Dow. This includes 98% of the seeds available for growing by home gardeners. The methods these companies use to promote their products is really extreme and dishonest. They control every aspect of the sale of their seeds, and a company like Chase Organics is bound by a very extensive set of contractual obligations requiring them to promote these commercial varieties above and beyond any heritage varieties that might be sold along side of them and take measures that ultimately lead to frustration to seed savers.

These six large seed companies lose money every time someone is able to save their own seeds and not have to return each year as a customer and buy more. By pretending to sell you heritage variety seeds and leaving you frustrated, they hope to teach you saving your own seeds is just more trouble than it’s worth. By selling you excessively marketed varieties that look special, but in reality are the same varieties commercial farmers use, they want to teach you that supermarket vegetables are “normal” and what you should be growing in your garden. They want you to learn that growing anything else is weird and too much trouble, and marketing terms often include such things as ‘disease resistance’, ‘reliable’ or ‘high yields’ which often have no true meaning except perhaps to farmers.

I cannot emphasize enough that you will be punishing yourself if you buy garden seeds under these circumstances! The seed companies will win in the end, and you will just be left frustrated.

If you want to avoid these tricks the six large seed companies play, you must look for a seed company that does not sell any of their seeds! You must look for a seed company that has a clear and public statement that says they only sell Open Pollinated seeds. It is not good enough that the seeds are ‘organic’, ‘just like your mother grew’, ‘heirloom quality’ or any other marketing term that makes you think the seeds must be heritage varieties. It’s not a secret, and companies don’t just forget to make such a public statement. It’s not good enough if they offer you an explanation in a private email. If you don’t see a clear public statement, look for another company to buy your seeds from.

Better yet, instead of buying seeds, learn how to save your own seeds and trade with other seed saving gardeners.

On the front of this blog are links to a number of seed companies, all of which only sell Open Pollinated seeds. If you live in Europe, the seed laws all but make this kind of seed company illegal. To the best of my knowledge there is one and only one seed company still in existence in Europe that sells only Open Pollinated seeds, and that’s Real Seeds in the UK. Don’t count on Real Seeds being around forever, and be sure to support their efforts by doing business with them and saving their seeds!

A number of US based seed companies will ship overseas, and most countries do not restrict the import of garden seeds. I have not had any serious problems importing seeds into the Netherlands. I don’t think it’s much of an issue to import seeds into the UK.

Heirloom Tomatoes

Some other people have been posting heirloom tomatoes they’ve planted for 2008, so I thought I would post my list as well. It’s one of the problems having a garden on the other side of the town that I have to depend on notes rather than actually looking at what I have growing in the garden when making a post like this, so I might update this list later if I discover an omission or two.

This year the Seed Savers Exchange sent me their new catalog, with wonderful color pictures of the tomatoes they were offering, and I got sucked in. I placed a large seed order of mostly tomatoes from them, and that’s mostly what I’m planting this year. I got a few seeds from other places and people and had a few saved seeds as well. The nice thing about the Seed Savers Exchange is when they put together a collection of seeds like these tomatoes, you know the people behind the decisions are very knowledgeable on the subject, and have probably put together a rather special collection. That’s what I’m counting on anyway.

The Japanese Trifele Black tomato is a relatively new tomato that many people are growing this year. For those of you in the UK, this is rumoured to be Raymond Blanc’s favorite tomato (Raymond Blanc is a British TV personality, originally from France and owner of a chain of upscale restaurants in the UK). In spite of it’s name, it’s really a Russian tomato. Apparently one of the people involved in breeding it was Japanese, which is how it got it’s name. Not only is there a black version of this tomato, but there are a number of other colors as well. I figured what else do you do if you are an heirloom gardener but collect them all, so I am growing the red and yellow versions of this tomato too. I also got seeds from the orange version from a SSE member in Belarus, but they came too late for planting this year and I didn’t have any more space for tomatoes in the garden anyway, so maybe I’ll plant it next year.

I had originally planned to plant some ground cherries (Ottawa Gardener sent me some seeds), but as part of preparing our house for the foundation work a lot of our things got packed into boxes and put into storage, and a few seed packets got misplaced including these seeds. So, they are on the agenda for next year.

This is my first time trying tomatillos, and they’ve been quite a challenge to get started. I’ve now had to sow the seeds three times indoors for transplant outside. The first two times, the plants just died after transplant, apparently because it was too cold for them. Now both kinds seem to be doing okay. I have the green ones on my roof, and the purple/green ones at the garden. Isolation is necessary for seed saving, and they would cross if grown in the same place. As I understand it, you need at least two plants, because they will not set fruit if they don’t receive pollen from another plant (self-sterile). I have at least three of each variety. The Purple/Green variety is from Real Seeds, and the Green variety is from Lieven.

Here’s the list:

Matt’s Wild Cherry
Giant Belgium
Silvery Fir Tree
Hillbilly Flame
Copia
Black Prince
Black Cherry
Mortgage Lifter
Pineapple
Brandywine
True Black Brandywine
Nebraska Wedding (Determinate Type)
Czech’s Bush (Determinate Type)
Black Sea Man (Determinate Type)
Giant Syrian
Moonglow
Japanese Trifele Black (Really from Russia)
Japanese Trifele Yellow
Japanese Trifele Red
Blondkopfchen
Nygous
Brown Berry
John Baer
Crnkovic Yugoslavian
Gold Medal
Emerald Evergreen
Taxi
Green Tomatillos
Green/Purple Tomatillos
Sweet Pea Currant
Gold Rush Currant
Powers Heirloom

First Strawberries

White Alpine Strawberries

Here are our first strawberries of the year. Six white Alpine strawberries.

They are white, a little on the small side, but taste like normal strawberries. In fact they have a really nice and intense strawberry flavor.

I’ve just planted some in the garden, but they won’t produce berries the first year until late in the season. These were grown on our roof. We regularly have birds attack other plants, but not these. The birds can’t see these berries because they aren’t red. We don’t do anything to protect the plants from the birds.

Most strawberries are genetically pre-programmed to give their harvest in one go. This is handy for the farmer, who can plan the harvest in advance, but not really useful for the rest of us who would probably prefer to have a continuous supply of fresh strawberries through the summer. While these plants are not very heavy croppers, the do offer a continuous harvest. They are great for either having a few plants around for that odd handful of berries for the morning cereal, or planting more plants to allow for larger harvests. I have about 8 plants, and at most I usually get about 10 berries at a time.

Unlike most strawberries, these are grown from seed. Seeds are pretty easy to save, just break the berries apart with your fingers in a bowl of water. The seeds will sink to the bottom, and the other material can be rinsed off (this is a little harder than it sounds, and takes some practice). The seeds can be dried on a paper coffee filter. The seeds need a period of cold before they will germinate, so put them in the freezer for about a month or use some other method of stratifying them. They grow slow and get easily lost in the weeds when they are young, so it’s usually easier to start them in weed free medium like potting soil.

If anyone wants some seeds, let me know and I’ll send you some. I have a waiting list right now, and not enough seeds, so it may be a few months before I can actually send them. You can let me know now you want them and I’ll add you to the list.

Field Garlic

Field Garlic

Allium oleraceum

This is yet another plant from Lieven. I have this growing on my roof, with both of these plants in a very small pot but they seem to be doing well.

It has a very strange topset, with both bulbils AND seeds! It’s the first topset to form this year in my garden. Apparently the seed pods are on the end of the long tendrils.

The taste of the leaves is garlic like, but not overly special, and the texture of the leaves is a little unplesant.

I don’t know yet what the root looks or tastes like. If it’s anything interesting, I will do another post about it.