Seed Stories

[Grey Deer Running]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to ask this question, so please re-route me if necessary! I'm an avid collector of seed origin stories, but I know I've not even heard the beginning of them all. Would any of you share your favorite seed origin stories? Such as one of my favorite beans to grow: Turkey Craw, apparently found in the crop of a wild-shot turkey somewhere in Appalacia, potentially stolen (by the turkey) from a native american garden. That story leaves so much to be known, though--who shot the turkey? Why'd he save the bean? Does anyone know a native American Appalacian garden that had similar beans?

I'd be curious to hear any of your stories, even if they're of little-known seed varieties. Which ones were hidden on socks and transported, in secret, across the Atlantic? Which ones were valued by generations of the same family and guarded jealously over the years? Which ones were traded hand-to-hand, and never sold?

 

[digitS']

My father's youngest brother passed away 10 years ago at age 87. During the 1990's, he gave me seeds for a tomato that his mother had grown "during the Depression," he said. He said that my grandmother called it "The Peddler's Tomato."

It is a mild, saladette type that I have grown repeatedly. Noticing that Porter was of similar appearance in the seed catalogs, I tried both for 2 years. At first, I thought that maybe the foliage was a little different but after another season there was simply nothing that I could see or taste that was not exactly the same about the plants and fruit.

I ask my uncle if he would like to grow Porter and see for himself. "No," he said immediately! I chuckled and he grinned a little.

It makes a lot of sense that "the peddler" might be selling seed from the Porter & Son Seed Company in Stephenville Texas. They were selling seed from 1912. If Grandmother's purchase was just a couple of years before the 1929 stock market crash in 1929, the family was still living in Oklahoma. Google tells me that they were less than 300 miles from Stephenville. Even later, they were just on the other side of El Paso in New Mexico.

Gardeners can still buy seed for that tomato . Saving seed might have been a little unnecessary but Grandmother, along with many other people, was showing a special appreciation for that variety. It has stood the test of time .

Welcome to TEG, @Grey Deer Running

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

The tomato is an AMAZING!! fruit, IMHO. I am in awe of how many varieties have been developed in many different countries. I am growing one this year that was developed in Poland, as a early variety.
Thomas Jefferson grew tomatoes as small, knobby, wrinkled heirloom looking fruit only to make into a sauce.
YOUR soil can determine how a tomato that YOU grow tastes. Everybody raves over Cherokee Purple, which I have grown, saved the seeds and grown again, but my family's opinion is...meh. All has to with MY soil.
Where I live is one hour north of where the glaciers flattened everything out. It is a little bit hilly, but south and east of us it is very hilly, 3 hours south of us is REALLY hilly, it is the west end of the Appalachians around Cairo.
According to an unclaimed expert the depth of loess here ranges from 2 inches deep to 18 inches deep.
I live on 5 acres, which was cut from 50--the rest is farmed west of us--and where I placed my BIG garden, ~12' x ~30' started out STRAIGHT CLAY! That's what happens when somebody farms on it for 120 years!
The first year I planted tomatoes and sweet peppers that were out there to DIE!
Now, after maybe 15 years of dumping used horse stall bedding, manure, straw, pine pellets powdered with urine, and fine pine shavings has produced a fairly rich soil that can grow many things--not Done amending Yet!
You, in the Ozarks have a completely different soil, not worse, but different.
You pay for the Missouri University Extension officer with your taxes.
Contact them and ask for suggestions. They look forward to gardeners who want their wisdom.