31st Annual Conference of the Seed Savers Exchange

This past weekend my friend Janet and I drove out to the small town of Decorah, Iowa to attend the 31st annual conference of the Seed Savers Exchange. If you are unfamiliar with this organization as I was until a few years ago you will be amazed at the awesome work they are doing.

The mission of the Seed Savers Exchange is:

"to save North America's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity."

Besides wandering through the hollyhocks, lettuces, kale, phlox and conversing with the ducks, turkey, chickens, horses, cows and other assorted creatures I managed to attend 4 keynote addresses and five additional workshops in a day and a half of intensive information sharing.





Craig LeHoullier is a tomato expert from Raleigh, North Carolina who grows a variety of tomatoes in his driveway. He inspired me to try growing out some Juliet tomatoes, to see if it is possible to stabilize this particular hybrid so that one day it will be an heirloom. The good thing about these types of conferences is meeting other like minded people. I now have the name of someone who is already working at ensuring Juliet continues into the future so I hope to connect with her to help in this project.

Woody Tasch from Slow Money gave a presentation about the movement to bring investors and local food producers together which reflects the new economic, social and environmental realities of the 21st century.

Jeff McCormack entertained us with numerous stories that surround the world of plants. Oral history is an important aspect of connecting people with plants and plays an important role in the continued diversity of the plants we grow. Dr. McCormack is publishing a book 'Bush Medicine of the Bahamas' that will be available in August. This is one book that is definitely on my reading list.

Matthew Dillon gave a delightful presentation about the role of the Organic Seed Alliance in the preservation of our diverse heritage of locally grown seeds and the work being done to ensure that we have a future of healthy seeds.

I also managed to tour several of the gardens, meet and greet various farm animals, and hear Rosalind Creasy talk about the edible landscape. She suggested growing flowers with vegetables since small flowers like alyssum attract other pollinators besides bees which are great for your vegetables. Don't be surprised to see lettuce growing next to the nasturtiums in my front yard next year!

I did manage to attend a session about the library, a wonderful collection of both old and new material. Soon these materials will be listed in the OCLC catalog available at most libraries. This session provided a bit of relief since the library was inside the office building which was air conditioned. Decorah was experiencing the same heatwave as Michigan, but somehow or other I managed to listen and learn without wilting.