I'ts once again that time of year when tobacco is is offered ,sage,cedar,and sweetgrass burned and the soil turned and the beginning of seeds to be planted,yesterday I received a call from Hawggy about going to the Gittigann Garden meeting which I have been abstena all season, at first I polietly declined but after several taunts and insults with vulgur words and stating some guests would be talking about Heirloom Gardening my attention was perked and I replied with "maybe" I'll be there, and so I decided to to take him up on the offer that night and the guests were from the " Dream of Wild Health" farm. Now they were talking about their project of growing out Native crops from seeds handed down thru the generations and brinning nutrition and natural diets back into the lives of Natives again, and how they work on keeping these seeds alive to pass on , they stated they have been gardening for about 10 years now and were very impressed once they found out I first learned about Heirlooms and started growing almost 20 years ago over the F1 Hybrids, and later after their talk I chatted with them along with the Hawgg, and they were offering to give me their bean seed collection and give some corn this fall to plant the following season on the condition I give them a portion of the harvest and promise to pass on the seeds , now many of the bean seed strains I do have but not from the same sources as they have, such as bean and corn seed grown buy a Native seed saver named Cora who passed away in 2000, many of the varieties I was give are from seeds Cora had been growing since the 1800,s so there is not much genetic contamination and have many interesting characteristics that commercial varieties being offered today do not have. So as I admire my new gift to my collection, I now have a special plot to plant with this new unanticipated "project" on my hands along with a melon and watermelon test I am conductiong with some seeds I "Liberated" during a recent expedition to the "Black Pearl" region, and to add even more excitement I was also able to add some unique seeds from Ecuador to my plantings. already I have flats with Sword beans, Runner beans in colors of brown,white,tan,balck,scarlet,pink, and purple just waiting for the weather to warm to let their roots run free in the soil, I have stripped maize/black popcorn, and I am thinking of planting a plot of Äztec Black"corn this season as it's been a few years. the tobaccoo is starting to sprout as well as the breadseed poppies in the flower gardens, as for the house gardens the first project on the list is to capture that rascally rabbit running around the yard.
Labels: beans, corn, gardening, heirloom gardening, seeds, squash
