What are heirloom seeds?
As the word implies, heirloom seeds are historical varieties that are passed from generation to generation, like an heirloom possession. In the U.S., they’ve often been brought by immigrants and handed down through the years, sometimes within a single family. Heirlooms are open-pollinated varieties of fruits and vegetables, so they rely on wind or pollinators to transfer pollen between flowers.
When compatible varieties are grown closely together, this can result in cross-pollination and hybridization. Hybrids are one-off varieties that cannot breed true, but hybrids can stabilize, at which time they are no longer hybrids and become their own variety, often developing improved qualities, including new flavors or colors, climate hardiness, and disease resistance.
Open pollination also means that seeds can be saved, allowing the grower to select the hardiest plants’ seed for growing the next year; this gives the farm an advantage of growing plants that are better adapted to the local microclimate.
Most of the produce grown on Wind’s Four Quarters Farm is composed of heirloom varieties obtained from Seed Savers Exchange, a seed stewardship organization based in Decorah, Iowa. We also obtain some seed from Johnny’s Selected Seed, an employee-owned seed company in Maine that has made the Safe Seed Pledge, a promise to not knowingly sell seed produced in a laboratory, and create hybrids through normal cross-breeding farming techniques; and from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, an heirloom seed company from Missouri.
What heirlooms does W4QF grow?
With the wide diversity of crops grown on the Farm, the specific varieties of seed grown each year may vary. However, we’ve identified a few favorites that we will grow as long as we can save our own seed or obtain new seed.
- Lettuces: Amish Deer Tongue (looseleaf), Bronze Arrowhead (oakleaf), Crisp Mint (romaine), and Rouge d’Hiver (red romaine)
- Carrots: Dragon (purple), Scarlet Nantes (orange), and Juane du Doubs (yellow)
- Parsnips: Half-long Guernsey
- Tomatoes: Blondköpfchen and Cherokee Purple (shown)
- Cucurbits: True Lemon cucumber, Thelma Sanders acorn squash (not shown), Black Beauty zucchini, and Patisson Panache Vert et Blanc summer squash
- Beans: Cherokee Trail of Tears (shown) and Sultan’s Green Crescent
- Peas: British Wonder shelling peas, Golden Sweet peas, and Amish Snap peas
- Brassicas: Red Russian kale (shown), Myers Family mustard, Arugula, Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage, French Breakfast radishes, Purple and White Vienna kohlrabi (White Vienna shown above)
