By Anne Halliwell
Wylie House Museum added some history to local growers’ gardens at its annual seed sale Saturday morning.
Gardeners browsed packets of seeds with pictures and growing instructions for flowers, beans, tomatoes and herbs in the Morton C. Bradley Jr. Education Center.
In order to be considered an heirloom, a plant must be at least 50 years old, said Sherry Wise, the outdoor interpreter for Wylie House.
Even more importantly, heirlooms tend to be crops a family held in importance, she said, and the seeds are passed down from generation to generation.
“Many, many of them are now extinct,” Wise said. “So it’s up to us to protect these seeds and keep them safe. The heirlooms are the source of our genetic diversity.”
Most of the crops grown all over the world are now hybrids or plants that have been selectively bred to enhance traits like crop yield or size, Wise said.
This means the plants share genetic material and are therefore more likely to pass diseases to one another, she said.
The Irish potato famine and United States corn blight in the 1970s can be blamed on genetically-similar plants falling prey to the same diseases, Wise said.
“Whole crops can be wiped out if they don’t have that broad genetic base,” Wise said. “When you do that, you lose a lot of qualities like flavor but also disease-resistance.”
At the sale, the Wylie House Museum passed out fliers for a screening of “Seeds of Time” with agriculturist Cary Fowler on March 28 at the IU Cinema.
Pattie Terrell has her own heirloom African violet at home — the original plant is 130 years old.
African violets grow in clumps, which can be split and repotted or given away, she said.
Terrell said it’s time for her to split her own violet and pass it on to friends or family members. She selected marigolds and zinnias to attract butterflies to her garden in the meantime.
Cindy Benson picked through the rows of seed packets for arugula, ragged jack kale and squash to take back to her garden in Unionville, Indiana.
Benson, 58, has attended the Wylie House seed sale every year and said she makes the drive to Bloomington specifically for the heirloom seeds.
When she plants seeds from chain stores, Benson said the number of seeds that never germinate or sprout is much higher than the seeds from Wylie.
At $2 to $3 per packet, Benson said the seeds would last her through her spring and fall plantings, as she tends to grow through the colder months.
“I know they’re not genetically modified, and I believe the heirlooms tend to have a better flavor than the newer seeds,” Benson said. “I just find that heirloom seeds — especially the ones I get here — they work.”
