2013catalog

Dear Gardening Friends,
We are excited to bring you our 15th annual seed
catalog, the largest and we hope the best yet. This
year it contains 212 pages and 1450 varieties of
rare and unique vegetables, flowers and herbs
from over 70 countries, bringing you the largest
selection of heirloom varieties offered in the Americas
and probably the most diverse collection of edibles
on the planet. It is our goal to preserve these
unique genetic treasures: seeds that have been
passed down through the generations, savored,
saved and honored as part of each culture. They
tell a still-living story of a culinary and horticultural
past. This is a past that is filled with amazing seeds
and stories—stories that are just as colorful as the
fragrant flowers and vintage vegetables that are
now filling our gardens again.
Heirloom seeds bring history alive and connect
past, present and future together like nothing else
can. For me personally, when I grow and eat Mexican
chiles each summer, I remember my Mexican
grandmother toiling in the garden all day, with me
running along beside her and watching as she lovingly
honored the soil and seeds, and then in the
kitchen cooking the same foods that were passed
down to her. As I plant each variety each spring, I
am instantly transplanted back to cultures of the
past, to the gardens of our forefathers, including my
grandparents. Now I hope to plant a dream of good
food and soil into our little daughter Sasha, who already
is captivated by the miracles of seed and soil. I
hope to plant a dream without corporate control of
our seeds, lands and the very foods that sustain us.
Let’s work together to make America’s food future
truly great, self-sustaining and fit to eat again.
The movement to save our seed has become
a global one, with gardeners everywhere bringing
back the old seeds, saving and dispersing them.
The fight to keep them pure is a greater struggle
each year, with corporate giants like Monsanto
promoting their patented, genetically modified
seeds, chemicals, and an ever widening net of
genetic pollution and patent infringement suits
against America’s farmers. One of the challenges
our company and the planet face annually is the
loss of corn (and other crop) varieties due to cross
contamination from these patented, GMO seeds.
During the past 8 years since we started testing
each lot of heirloom corn we sell, we have found
that about 50% of America’s heirloom corn supply
is already contaminated with these unwanted, patented,
and possibly dangerous, GMO varieties. We
have pledged to not sell any seeds that come back
positive for Monsanto’s genes in our test samples.
Not only do we not believe in offering GMO tainted
seeds, but we would also be faced with possible
legal action for selling these unwanted genes.We
work each year to find growers in more and more
remote areas, but corn pollen floats in the air, so
maintaining pure corn has become a labor of love.
All told, GMO corn has cost our company thousands
of dollars in lost crops and sales. Worst of
all, though, is that several varieties have been lost
because of this contamination.
California’s Proposition 37 to require the labeling
of GMO foods has shown how much power the big
ag companies and their money can have. Just a matter
of weeks before the November election, the majority
of voters in California were expected to pass
the measure by an overwhelming margin. But the
opposing chemical companies were able to pour 45
million dollars into propaganda that changed voters’
minds. That amount of money influenced voter
opinions and caused some of the support of Prop 37
to just fade away. But the fight is not over—nearly
50% of California voters voted in favor of food labeling,
and the movement toward pure food continues
to grow.
We are just one small company, but we must not
give up our fight for pure food. We fight for the
right to our seed and the right for farmers to plant
without fear of lawsuits from corporate giants bent
on controlling every meal our children eat, feeding
us untested, and mostly unwanted foods that have
genes from who knows what: genes that are toxic
to insects, cause tumors in rats and are likely contributing
to many allergies according to many health organizations.
Even the American Medical Association
has called for mandatory pre-market safety testing
of genetically engineered foods. These “franken-