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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.

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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.

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Recent Transplants

The first plant is quinoa, one of the ‘Lost Crops of the Andes’. This is rainbow quinoa, from Real Seeds in the UK. The plant is very similar in appearance, and is related to, lambsquarters a common garden weed. I tried growing this a few years ago, and it didn’t come up. At the same time I noticed the garden was full of lambsquarters, so now I’m beginning to wonder if I didn’t set quinoa free into the garden back then.

Quinoa

In most places in the world, quinoa is easily available in natural food stores, and it’s worth trying if you’ve never had it. It’s sometimes called Incan rice, and it’s a direct replacement for steamed rice in many cases. It has a softer taste than normal rice, while at the same time can taste a little ‘soapy’. The soapiness comes from a water soluble alkaloid that you can remove from home grown quinoa by soaking overnight and rinsing thoroughly. Purchased quinoa has usually been processed to remove this alkaloid and doesn’t need to be rinsed.

The next plant is Amaranth. This too can be a garden weed, commonly called pigweed. Unlike quinoa, I’m not really sure of a nice way to eat this. I understand it can be mixed in with rice or other dishes. I guess I will have to experiment with this. The seeds for this also came from Real Seeds.

Amaranth

Last but not least is Good King Henry, also called Mercury. These seeds came from Søren. I understand you can eat the leaves like a spinach, and in the spring it sends up shoots that can be eaten as a ‘poor man’s asparagus’. The plants seem fragile, and are having a hard time establishing themselves. I understand they prefer partial shade, and they will be growing in the shadow of my Jerusalem artichokes.

Good King Henry (Mercury)

I think lots of people are growing this, so if anyone has any tips please let me know.

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GM News

Here are a few important recent developments concerning GM plants.

Monsanto vs Schmeiser: Percy Schmeiser is a Canadian farmer who first had his canola (called rape in Europe) fields contaminated with Monsanto’s Round-Up ready genes, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Monsanto not only refused to pay the costs of cleaning it up but demanded Schmeister pay fees for the privilege of growing plants containing their genes.

In a victory lacking much in the way of compensation for Schmeister, Monsanto settled out of court giving up on their demand Schmeister pay for using the genes, and agreeing to pay the clean up costs for Schmeister’s crops. The settlement clears the way for Schmeister and others to claim compensation for future contamination. Canadians, and indeed people all over the world, owe Schmeister thanks for establishing the right of farmers to stand up to companies like Monsanto.

This case went all the way to the Canadian supreme court, and cost Schmeister a huge amount in legal fees that were never recovered.

Genetically Engineered Sugar Beets: Starting this spring GM sugar beets will be grown in the US. This is a development potentially more important for Europe than the US, because sugar in the US is primarily from cane and in Europe sugar beets. Since sugar beets are highly out-breeding plants, there is the potential for widespread contamination to take place without being noticed right away. It’s unlikely Europe’s sugar supply will remain totally free of GM contamination.

Grab for Climate Ready Genes: Thanks to Ottawa Gardener who pointed this out to me. Seed company giants like Monsanto and Syngenta have been making a run on patents for so called ‘climate ready’ genes. These are genes intended to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils, and more. As global warming becomes a more important issue, we know who we will be buying our seeds from!