Planting a Seed

In my quest to live a more sustainable, simpler life sometimes I envy the past generations who have lived on this Earth.  Their lives were sometimes harder, shorter and generally less pleasant.  But one could argue that the struggle of there lives a essential part of being human and alive.

We have many benefits and labor saving devices that they could only dream of and most of us take them for granted to be sure.  We have known nothing else in our lives and we just accept that's the way it should be.  But with all these benefits available to us they bring us choices, both good and bad.  In order to make these choices we need to expand our minds to encompass whole new levels of information just to make sense of them. 

With spring time coming we are faced with the need to prepare our gardens and fields for the spring planting of crops.  What used to the simplest act in the world of placing a seed in the soil and watching it grow is no longer so simple.  Not only have the technologies for seeding grown exponentially from the simple shovel to a the massive tractors that roam the Midwest.  But the simple seed has grown in complexity with Hybrids, GMO's, Heirlooms, Organics and the list goes on.

What used to be quick stop to the local seed and field store is now a mind boggling array or choices and options not all of which are very clear.  Now I am all for having choices but I believe in educated choices and unless you are a full time farmer, gardener, or seed salesman most people (myself included)can not even to begin to comprehend the vast array of choices. 

Each type of seed will come with its own problems and benefits and choosing what fits best with your goals and beliefs can be tricky. 


I have found that all of these choices and be placed into two broad categories which will enable a average person to narrow down what you are looking for.  If you want to grow what you can find in the grocery store with it uniform size and color and flavor.  Or plants that have resistance to pesticides, herbicides and are designed to be exceptionally disease resistant and bear large crops then you are looking for GMO and Hybrid plants.  These types have been designed by either combining two different varieties of plants through interbreeding to produce a plant that is superior in some way to it parents.  Then you have GMO's which came on to the scene reletivly recently.  These GMO plants are created by altering the DNA of a plant by inserting features from other species into the plant DNA.  A example of this is BT corn which combines the genes of Bacillus thuringiensis with the genome of a corn plant.  This corn can them produce its own insect killing chemicals which reduce insect presence in corn fields.  For more information you can check out this page of the Colorado University Extension Service that gives more info about this particular GMO line. 

While GMO's and Hybrids can produce some very good crop returns in terms of yields and consistency many people find that they are lacking in flavor and in some tests in nutritional value as well.  On the other side of the spectrum are the Heirloom and Organic seeds.  A simple definition of Heirloom means that it is open pollinated and will breed true to the next generation.  Heirloom seeds allow a gardener to save seeds from plants that will grow the same plants next year with comparable traits.  Organic seeds are produced by plants that had no pesticide, herbicide, artificial fertilizers or fungicides.  Theses seeds offer many benefits when compared to hybrids or GMO's.  You can save seed from year to year and not worry about stepping on any legal toes.  They also reduce many of the fears associated with GMO and hybrid crops.  If handled correctly they can produce a sustainable nutritious crop from year to year.

For me personally I have found that Heirlooms seeds that give me what I am looking for in a seed.  They will enable me to produce my own food and save seed from the best of what i produce to give me even more food the next year.  They can also be raised organically and sustainably by individuals who wish so. 

Heirlooms can be found in many places both locally and on the Internet for those who wish.  A good source of seed that I like is the Burpee seed company.  They have a long tradition of producing high quality seed and there website provides many planning tool and information on how to raise the seeds they sell. 

Burpee seeds stands are fairly common throughout the country though the catalog or online selection is greater.  They carry many types of seeds including Hybrids, Heirlooms and Organics and as such they are my go to seed store. 

Below are links to the type of seeds that Burpee sells on there website. 

Burpee Heirloom Seeds

Burpee Hybrid Seeds

Burpee Organic Seeds


Until next time my fellow environmentalists.

Josh