My Cherokee "Trail of Tears" beans

I'm a believer in saving seeds, and keeping the heirloom varieties going. We have lost so much genetic diversity with "modern agriculture". This year I decided to grow the Cherokee 'Trail of Tears' bean.

My harvest will be smaller than I hoped, because a man doing some weedeating for me managed to cut the pole beans off at their base! Fortunately most were far enough along that they should dry on the vines; I'll add those to the pods that dried sooner. I should have enough for a pot of soup beans and still save a few beans to replant next year.

The pods start out green

and then turn purple

This variety has been given a ticket on Slow Food USA's Ark of Taste.The Ark of Taste is a catalog of over 200 delicious foods recognized as of cultural and culinary significance as well as being in danger of extinction. By promoting and eating Ark products, we help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears bean memorializes the forced relocation of the Cherokee Indians in the infamous winter death march of Cherokees from Georgia, North Carolina, northeastern Alabama, and Tennessee to what is now Oklahoma (1838-1839). They carried this bean throughout this infamous walk, which became the death march for thousands of Cherokees; hence the ‘Trail of Tears.’

In the face of its poignantly dismal history, the shiny, jet-black seeds are used with pride in many traditional American Indian dishes. The seeds are encased in six-inch, greenish-purple pods. These small attractive beans are often dried before being consumed, and have a delicious rich flavor.

This bean was first offered to the SSE (Seed Savers Exchange) back in 1977 by the late Dr. John Wyche of Hugo, Oklahoma. He shared that his Cherokee ancestors carried the beans over the infamous "Trail of Tears" in the winter of 1838.

The vines reach about eight feet producing six inch green pods with purple shading.  The seeds are a shiny, jet-black color.  They can be used when young and tender as green snap beans or left to maturing for dry beans. seeds

Sharon's Natural Gardens (Delmar, Delaware) had this to say:
"The fresh beans have a real bean flavor missing in modern beans. It is very resistant to any insect damage and has no disease problems. It also makes a good soup bean. We like to grow it on a fence, interplanted with cherry tomatoes and heirloom cucumbers."

The Red Wing Farm is a market garden and homestead in the Swannanoa Valley (near Asheville, NC). They grow this bean, and had this to say about growing it:

"A Cherokee man in Oklahoma donated seeds from this bean variety to the Seed Savers Exchange and so we are able to bring a few back to the mountains to plant in our river valley, where Cherokee people and their ancestors lived for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans.

The Cherokee people, and the other peoples of the decimated cultures that remained after the European invasion of the Americas, saved the seeds that had been planted by their ancestors: corn, squash, herbs and flowers, grains. And beans: hundreds, maybe thousands of ancient varieties of beans.

How do we retrace the steps of these ancestors and recover the intimacy with the natural world that was at the core of their systems of living? By planting a bean, covering it with dirt, giving it water and sun. By encouraging all of the life in the soil and air and water that nurtures the seed: worms, beneficial insects, microscopic life forms. By cultivating intimate relationships with the plants that feed us and the earth, air, water, and light that feed them. By preserving the seeds that sustain human life for another generation.

Nurturing the small bean plants in my garden, I honor the lost, forgotten, fragmented, and violated cultures and people that stand at the beginning of an unbroken chain of life between the tiny green plants in my garden and the plants grown by peoples of the Americas before European invasion.

Harvesting the beans in the fall, I invoke and offer gratitude to the people who stewarded, protected, and cultivated the bean-ancestors of my garden plants. I say a prayer to the earth for the restoration of human relationships with the natural world. Planting beans in my garden, I give thanks."

Seed Sources
Seed Savers Exchange
Victory Seed Company

Or find Producers on LocalHarvest

Cool Weather seeds

This is the first time any cool-weather crops have survived a winter in my garden, and several are now making seeds... something I usually don't get to see (much less save any seeds from them!).

Red-stemmed Swiss Chard

Beets

Carrot, looking feathery and ready to flower and make seed

The leaves on the cole plants are so eaten by insects that I cannot tell what is cauliflower, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts. They all have formed long skinny pods that look alike. I don't really care which is which because I'll sow them for this fall, and eat whatever comes up! I will try to save the seeds from each plant separately and label them A, B, and C before I plant a few to see if I can ID them later on.

Elsewhere in the garden, the garlic, shallots, onions and leeks are doing fine. In between the rows of garlic are some Belgian Endive, outlined by the white box in the photo below. The garlic will come out shortly, and give the endive tops plenty of sun to grow deep roots. I'll dig the roots this fall and put them in a tub of sawdust in the dark root cellar. With any luck, I'll have lovely blanched endive heads by January or February.

Belgian endive and Pear Salad, Photo by ExperienceLA

The Jerusalem artichokes I planted last spring have multiplied greatly. They should be a bright spot in the garden when they flower! In the fall they will be dug from this location, and many will be re-planted along the white rail fence (barely seen in the background) as a hedge and windbreak. I'll save a few to eat, of course!

The Babington leeks I planted last fall have shot up 1 flower stalk so far. The top of the flower stalk is 4' tall, and it looks like the flower will be gorgeous! The globular seeds in the pod will drop to the ground and root after the flower is gone.

Here's the Babington Leek seed pod 12 days earlier. Most of the seeds that I sprouted this spring died from neglect of a place to plant them, so I'm delighted to see some seeds from last fall's planting.

E. Coli in gene splicing, used to make GMO's

GMO Seed Corn, Photo by Oculator

From the photo description: "Better Living through Genetic Modification"

"An empty seed bag blew into the yard from passing farm machinery. This year's corn crop; next year's high-fructose corn syrup. I hope it doesn't do a gene swap with poison ivy! The tag boasts of three patented genes that the corn contains that make it resistant to herbicides. So: farmers can spray harsh chemicals on the corn without killing it, and thus yield more of it to make our cornflakes."

WHAT are THEY doing to my food??  I thought I had it mostly all figured out when I recently posted about the contaminated animal manure sludge being spread on our agricultural fields as one probable cause of the E. Coli outbreaks in Europe. Turns out it still might be that, plus something even more insidious... e. coli in their genes.

GMO foods now control the majority of the grocery shelves, and although I try to stay informed, somehow I totally overlooked (or forgot) the fact that Monsanto and others use E. Coli in gene splicing in order to manufacture GMO's. 

Now, I really do know not all strains of E. Coli are bad... my intestines would not function to convert ingested food to energy and/or bodily functions if I didn't have a resident host of beneficial E. Coli in my system.

However, when companies splice in not only E. Coli genes, but also antibiotic suppressor genes... who is to really know what that might create or evolve into, without years of independent testing before subjecting humans as test objects? Could replicating seeds that are E. Coli gene-spliced be the bottom line (the source) to the recent European E. Coli outbreak that reached the US during the first week of June, 2011?

Here's how gene splicing works:

1) A piece of DNA from the target cell is removed

2) A strand of E. coli bacteria DNA is inserted in it's place.  Cells are naturally resistant to gene splicing, (it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out), so you actually need to "infect" the food cell with a bacteria in order for the gene splicing to take place

3) Because cells will try to eliminate bacteria, there is also a DNA strand of an antibiotic suppressor inserted.  Pharmacists are cringing at this thought, especially since we are already in danger of becoming immune to many antibiotics!  Injecting an "anti" antibiotic into our food can NOT lead to anything good!

4) Finally a piece of genetic code for the "round-up ready" trait is inserted.  Methods of insertion include using a "gene gun" which injects all this DNA junk with little pieces of gold to help destroy the cell membranes.

5) The end product that is manufactured often is covered with tumors because of the bacterial infection that ensues.

6) Yay, now we have "food" that won't die when you put deadly chemicals and pesticides all over it in the field. Congratulations! Can't wait for dinner! (Read as sarcasm, please!) Source

Just 3 companies now control 85% of all the seeds world-wide. The only way to be sure of safe seeds is to grow open-pollinated or heirloom vegetables and hope there are no GMO fields nearby that can cross-contaminate your crops... then save your seeds. The growing number of seeds spliced with the Terminator Gene is frightening, although they are supposedly not used in the marketplace yet. The last I read on Terminator Technology was over a year ago, and the US Government then owned more than half of all the patents. WHY?

Berkely Student Food Coop, Photo by Jason Riedy

Seed Keeping has been an intrinsic part of life for thousands of years. Without the seed, there is no food.

"The gift of the seed is the ultimate gift - it is the gift of life, of heritage, of knowledge and of continuity. Saving seeds is saving biodiversity, saving knowledge of the seed and it's uses, saving cultures and conserving life."
- Dr. Vandana Shiva

There's Something SO Exciting about seeing a Seed Sprout!

Today, my first seed sprout emerged. Keep in mind, I'm a gardener who starts seeds every year so it should be "old hat" to me, but somehow, it's as exciting as if I'd never seen it happen!

Perhaps because it reminds me of the infinite knowledge carried in a tiny seed that allows it to become a squash, or a pepper, or an orange tree... and to both provide food for me, and to also make more seeds so it can reproduce? Or perhaps it is a reminder that Life prevails in Nature despite humankind's collective efforts to destroy it.

It has always fascinated me that a single human egg and a sperm can combine and grow into a complex organism where some cells that have divided know to make arms or legs and other cells know to make hearts and lungs. 

I'm sure something similar happens when a plant seed starts to grow... some cells know to make stems and leaves, some know to make flowers... which in turn know to make fruits containing seeds, either on the outside like strawberries, blackberries or cashews, or the inside of the fruit like tomatoes and bananas.

It's kind of awesome, isn't it?

Storing Seed for Best Shelf Life

I'm such a dunce sometimes! For many years I have bought OP (open pollinated) and/or Heirloom seed, both for the interesting varieties, and so I could save seed for the next year. It never occurred to me to look into how to store them in the best possible way, simply because I never looked beyond next year's garden... and my seeds were "mostly" viable for the next year.

Since I had not planned much of a garden this year (until recently) I only had a stash of old seeds pre-2010, and no new seeds on order. Now that I have researched the longevity of some seed varieties with optimum storage, I'm pretty sure a lot of the old seeds I have are now duds. I always save tomato seeds but the last 2 summers have seen all my tomatoes fail with NO seeds to save, so any tomato seeds in my stash are at least 3 years old.

As it turns out, tomato seeds are among the longest lasting when stored properly, so I still have a tiny chance of some germination. All my seeds have been stored dry (necessary to extended life), but not stored cool (also necessary). That will change this year as I am now determined to store all my seeds properly.

I did order seeds last week. However, most seed packets come with many more seeds than I need to plant, so this year I will properly store unused seeds instead of just taping the packet shut and dropping the packet in my seed shoebox!

Two main things affect the storage life of seeds. One is their natural longevity, and the other is storage conditions, which include temperature, humidity and light. Remember, seeds are alive!  What you want to do is store them in the opposite conditions that are suitable for growth... seeds germinate with warmth, moisture and light so you want to keep them cool, dry and dark.

Some seeds simply do not store well even in the best of conditions. Those primarily include onions and peas, but also corn, grains and beans. 

Seeds that store the longest:

Crucifers: broccoli, cabbage, radish
Nightshades: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant
Melon family: zucchini, watermelon, pumpkins

Best Seed Storage

First, seeds need to be dry initially, and then kept dry and in the dark. Storage conditions of less than 50% RH (relative humidity) are best, but not too low or the seeds will dry so much they are virtually dead. You can achieve low humidity with seeds in jars by adding some packages of a desiccant like silica-gel (those little packets that sometimes come in potato chips, or leather goods). Silica gel crystals are usually blue, and they turn to pink when they have absorbed moisture. You can put them in the oven to drive off the moisture; they will turn blue again and can be re-used. Survival foods sites sell them.

Secondly, seeds need to be kept cool, under 50ºF. You can store seeds in the refrigerator, the freezer, under the house in a crawl space, or in a root cellar, any of which greatly extend shelf life. I will store mine in the freezer until cool fall weather arrives, then they will go in the root cellar to free up freezer space for fall butchered meats.

I plan to vacuum-pack all my unused seeds in their packets. That way I can toss them in the fridge or freezer and not worry about any absorption from anything else. Seeds I will save from this year's crops I may put in canning jars with some silica-gel packets until I'm sure they are fully dry. Then they can go in the root cellar.

Here are some helpful links:
Giving Seeds What They Need In Storage - good, commonsense information for the home gardener 
Seed Storage Tips - the basics for home gardeners
Seed-Storage Times and Viability

Interesting tidbit: 
Out of about 10,000 edible plants, only 120 (about 1%) provide 90% of the food worldwide!

Fighting Food Prices 2011

Photo from The Comsumerist's Photostream

I had planned to cut back on my vegetable garden this year and concentrate my time and energies on making cheese and curing meats. Guess what? With the increasing food prices, it ain't gonna happen!

In 2010 alone, the cost of food increased 25%, with an additional 9.9% in the first 2 months of this year. That's a 35% increase just for food in 14 months, and the EIU is projecting an additional 19% rise this year. Can your food budget withstand a 54% increase? Mine can't!

So yesterday I put off a personal loan payment and ordered vegetable seeds instead. Much of what I ordered is OP (Open Pollinated) Heirloom seed so that I can save seeds for next year. That assumes we have a decent gardening year, which a lot of the world is not expected to have (and that will drive prices even higher).

For a long time, I have encouraged people to Eat Local, to buy from their Farmer's Markets and roadside stands, and to grow a few vegetables in their yards or pots on the balcony. I've encouraged the idea of converting the front lawn into a garden patch studded with fruiting bushes and trees alongside the rows or patches of veggies. This year I think those ideas are becoming imperative for more and more people, except those with their heads in the sand. (I think I've had my own head a little bit in the sand because I had NOT added up the actual food price increases until now. Shame on me!)

As an aside... Our minds do strange things with the thought of nuclear disaster, from denial to running scared... and one of the places my mind went was to row covers for foods growing in my garden. IF airborne nuclear radioactivity falls to earth contaminating our water and soil, what is the possibility that garden rows covered with long hoop housing could mitigate the soil accumulation and allow plants to grow untainted? Frankly, I have no idea... it was just a thought. (I don't have the money to do such a project anyway.)

Photo from The Consumerist's Photostream

In much the same way governments worldwide are trying to hide realities to calm fears arising from Japan's nuclear disaster, so are food companies trying to mask the incredible price increases by subterfuge in their packaging. You will find these look-alike packages on the shelves in the stores... they will be from the same manufacturer and look the same, perhaps have a price increase, but the contents will be reduced by the following amounts:

Kellogg Cereal: roughly 15%
Snickers Bars:11%
PepsiCo’s Tropicana OJ: 8%
PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay Chips: 12.5% - 20%
Haagen-Dazs: 12.5%
Chicken of the Sea Tuna: 17%
Kraft Foods’ Saltines and Graham Crackers: 15%
Reese's: 37%
Bounty: 7.2%,
Heinz Ketchup: 11%

Photo from The Consumerist's Photostream

American farmers are said to be switching some food acreage into cotton this year because the price of cotton has increased nearly 60% in the last year.

Be assured my tiny vegetable plot will remain planted in vegetables, as long as I feed the soil and the soil will support growth. I'll be posting more on seed starting plus how to make your own seed starting mix in the next few days.

Chestnuts

My neighbor gave me a bag of chestnuts, with more to come as they fall!

I'm not sure what all I will make with them; some will be chestnut biscotti and I have several recipes. A few will be a fresh spinach and chestnut salad, and I may even candy some.

For sure, a few will be placed in barely damp peat moss in a slightly ventilated plastic bag, and then refrigerated to plant in the spring. See the little tails on some of the nuts? I understand the nuts MUST have the tails in order to grow.

Whole chestnuts freeze well, so the rest will go in the freezer until I decide what I want to do with them. Meanwhile, I may even eat a few raw (very tasty!) and maybe roast a few. YUM!

Cross-Pollination and Saving Squash Seed

Species joined by a solid line do not cross, but crossing may occur between species connected by a broken line.

One of  my friends has started a large CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) this year, and the subject of saving seeds came up. Obviously, if you can save seeds from OP (open pollinated) and/or heirloom varieties, you can save some money the following year by not having to purchase seeds again. However, some vegetables are notorious for cross-pollinating, like peppers and squash. Commercial pepper farms isolate varieties by 1500 feet, which isn't practical for CSA's or the home gardener.

Beans (P. vulgaris) rarely cross naturally, but lima beans (P. lunatus) and runner beans (P. coccineus) will. Tomatoes will cross, although it's hard for insects to actually get to the pollen. You can isolate varieties by a trap crop (like peppers) between them. With any vegetable saved for seeds, save only the very best, and save several of the same variety mixed together, even mix with a few of the original seeds if they are only a year or two old. ALWAYS save enough of the original seed to plant out the following 2 years in case of a crop failure.

Any vegetable that cross-pollinates will still grow the first year just as it is supposed to do, but any saved seeds will likely produce some strange looking veggies the following year. Here's a lesson on cross pollination on the Curcurbit family, and down below that, a tip on how to easily isolate seeds so they do not cross pollinate.

To be honest, this information is most likely copied word for word from someone's site on the internet, but I've had it in my files for ages, with no source listed. It may even be copyrighted material and I apologize, but I'm just using it for education, which is allowed by law.

Plants in the Cucurbitaceae or gourd family belong to four species among which crosses may occur. The success of such crossing depends on the species to which a variety belongs. Plants belonging to the Cucurbitaceae family produce separate male and female blooms on the same plant. Insects are usually required to cross-pollinate blooms.

This refers to the drawing above: Species joined by a solid line do not cross, but crossing may occur between species connected by a broken line.

The more common varieties of gourd, pumpkin, and squash belong to the species indicated below:

C. pepo: Casserta, Cocozefle, Connecticut Field, Delicata, Early Prolific Straightneck, English Marrow, Golden Custard, Orange Gourd, Pea, Gourd, Small Sugar, Table Queen or Acorn, Tours, Tricolor Spoon Gourd, Uconn, White Bush Scallop, Winter Luxury, Yellow Crookneck, and Zucchini.

C. moschata: Alagold, Butternut, Calhoun, Chirimen, Dickinson Field, Golden Winter Crookneck, Kentucky Field, Large Cheese, Sugar Marvel, and Turkish Honey.

C. mixta: Green Striped Cushaw, Japanese Pie, Silverseed Gourd, Tennessee Sweet Potato, and White Cushaw.

C. maxima: Banana, Boston Marrow, Buttercup, Delicious (all types), Essex Hybrid, French Turban, Hubbard (all types), Mammoth, Mammoth Chili, Marblehead, and Olive.

Pumpkins and squashes do not cross-pollinate with cucumbers, watermelons or citron. Watermelons and citron both belong to the same genus Citullus and, therefore, will cross-pollinate each other. Muskmelons and Casaba melons will cross since they are both in the same genus Cucumis and also in the same species melo.

Here's a tip on how to get non-cross-pollinated seed:

You can plant squash of the same species and save seeds too. Check your blossoms the night before and pick a male and female that should open the next morning. Take a bit of masking tape and tape the blossom ends shut. The next morning, pick your male flower and untape. Untape your female and hand pollinate it. Tape it back shut, and mark that blossom with a bit of yarn or something. 

Squash produce so many seeds, that you can do 2 or 3 flowers and have tons of seed for growing, trading or selling. Then let everything grow and pollinate as they naturally do. When harvest time comes, you have your marked squash to save seeds from. Once a flower is pollinated (and not subject to pollen carried on the wind), you could also put it in a little net bag; just don't use the drawstring as it can be hard to remove. Use a twist-tie or a bit of cotton around the stem.

Cucurbit flowers open shortly after sunrise and remain open until late afternoon or early evening. Accordingly, each flower is open for only a few hours. The honeybee is the most common and effective pollinator of cucurbits. Honeybee activity closely coincides with the period when the flower is open. Honeybee visitation begins an hour or two after sunrise and continues until midafternoon. If temperatures are very warm, bee activity may decline about noon. Research on cantaloupe pollination conducted in California showed that bee visitations increased until 10 a.m. and then declined until 3 p.m. when activity almost ceased.