Recently, I was asked to review a great new book called The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere and Emilee Gettle. The Gettles own Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, which you may recognize because they have an incredible listing of heirloom vegetable seeds. Their catalog is awesome too.
So, I’ve been enjoying their new book for the past couple of weeks and it is really wonderful, filled with incredible pictures, and so much information it will burst your bubble if you think you can process it in any kind of short period of time. This is definately a book for heritage food gardeners.
The chapters range from their personal story to insight about sourcing old varieties of vegetables from different parts of the world. The book includes sections for every type of vegetable from squash and radishes to the ever popular heirloom tomatoes.
I would encourage you to snag this treasure of a book by adding a copy to your personal library, and a couple of extra copies you can gift to special gardening friends or a family member who is into heritage food gardening. The book is available through Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for $29.99 and worth every single penny! Check out their website at www.rareseeds.com or phone them at 417-924-8917.
Well, I have been on a vegetable mission myself of late. I’m working very hard to get the heritage heirloom plant information page of this blog updated with all the varieties we grow here at the farm, most of which we offer for sale to our wholesale customers. We also sell them to the public from our Farm Stand during our Open Farm Days on weekends starting the last weekend of April and going through the last weekend of May (these are the only dates that we are open to the public). These delicious tomatoes are Red Robin Cherry Tomatoes.
I hope you will check out that plant list for information on growing and using these great food plants. I have completed through peppers and my hope is that I can get all the way through the list by end of the weekend. Keep your fingers crossed. It’s a very big task. At some point I also hope to add in some more pictures, but that may have to wait until a bit later when time allows. This is one of my favorite squashes called Black Forest Kabocha.
Some have asked what the difference is between an heirloom and heritage food plant. The basic difference is that an heirloom is at least 50 years old or older and is open-pollinated. Heritage food plants are old-fashioned and traditional varieties, many of which are decades old, and they might be open pollinated or hybrids. They are definately and absolutely NOT genetically modified organisims or GMO’s.
All of these food plants are important to our food traditions and part of our cultural stories. I am passionate about all of them because they are delicious, nutritious and pure fun. Many of them have unique stories, well…actually they each and every one do. They are important to enrich our lives and fill our pantries.
Check out the Heritage Heirloom Food Plant Info page of this blog. I think you will find it interesting. But keep checking it every so often, because there are a lot more plants still needing to be included in my list and I’m working on that as fast as I can. See ya!
