The Radical Hope of Seed Saving

For millennia, seeds and the knowledge around how they are grown have passed from generation to generation—right down to someone’s uncle’s vegetable garden, or perhaps to your grandma’s seed stash in the deep freezer.

In recent history, seed saving has transformed from a widespread practice to a highly controlled business—with four major firms directing more than two-thirds of worldwide commercial seed sales. The consequence of entrusting seed cultivation to these corporations is a loss of genetic diversity, and of our regionally adapted seed varieties. As a result, the knowledge that accompanies growing regionally-specific seeds has been lost, too. 

Seeds saved for replanting come from open-pollinated plants (pollinated by natural methods involving insects, birds, wind, and rain) which yield seeds that are genetically identical to their parents. This dependability of outcome is how seeds become heirlooms. Grandma’s heirloom cucumber seeds, with proper care, will produce cucumbers like Grandma used to grow. The seeds saved from a Garden Sweet Hybrid Cucumber, which has been intentionally cross pollinated in a controlled situation, will not produce cucumbers as sweet.

Some slight variations can occur from season to season when cultivating heirlooms, but this is part of the fun of seed saving. Committed growers observe their heirloom plants closely for favorable variations like darker flowers, sweeter fruit, or resistance to drought. If they notice a favorable difference in one plant, they will save and replant from that plant hoping to repeat the variation. This process often leads to the development of new varieties and a plant’s gradual adaptation to the region where it is grown. 

Modern agricultural practices and the introduction of hybrid plants have made seed saving a less common practice, but it persists all the same in the dirt-encrusted hands of many small farmers and gardeners. I spoke to two such farmers who are maintaining a hold on local seed production in Louisiana—cultivating hope, as well as all kinds of funky, delicious peas and okras.

Louisiana Seed Savers

Iriel Edwards describes seeds as the “physical essence of hope, bundled up in the tiniest little thing.” 

Edwards is a specialty farmer operating on nine acres on the outskirts of Boyce, where she grows vegetable and seed crops and tends various plant breeding projects on her farm, The Dancing Radicle. (That’s not a typo. While Edwards might have a few radical ideas, the farm is named for the first tiny root to emerge from a seed and push downward through the soil.)  

After earning her degree in environmental science and entomology at Cornell University in 2020, Edwards craved a practical way to contribute to the work of developing Louisiana’s food systems and bettering the environment. She spent a few years working with Jubilee Justice in Alexandria—teaching fellow Black farmers an organic dry-land method of growing rice. Through this work of growing rice for the co-op’s seed, she slowly stepped up as a leader in the Louisiana seed-sharing community, organizing seed swapping events across the region. 

“In working with seeds, there’s a critical community piece, and a deep relationship with the land that is important for me as someone who has moved around a lot,” Edwards explained. She is excited to be part of building a network helping to preserve the farming and growing traditions of her community, thereby regaining local food sovereignty—a movement aimed towards regaining local decision-making powers, especially in how we grow food. 

To indicate the ways in which our current food systems are failing us, Edwards points to the high rate of diet-related illnesses in Louisiana and the degradation of our environment. 

Modern agriculture, with its emphasis on productivity and market demand, has reduced the genetic diversity of our food crops as well as the native plant diversity in the lands being used for agriculture. Through seed saving, Edwards counteracts this shrinking biodiversity by stewarding open pollinated crops with higher genetic diversity— allowing the plants to more readily adapt to local weather patterns, as well as to the greater fluctuations expected with climate change. 

Further south in Lafayette, Lilli Voorhies of Bumble Prairie Growing is also paving the way to a healthier food system by growing more regionally-adapted, genetically-diverse crops and by educating people on how to save seed and grow their own food. 

Voorhies, who studied landscape architecture at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, was drawn to farming while working for a non-profit collecting seeds and oral histories from backroads growers. She grows a reddish field pea she discovered during that time, a variety she has dubbed L’anse Grise Red Field Pea, the origins of which she is still researching.   

Influenced by the work of anthropologist Virginia Nazarea, Voorhies points out that when we listen to the stories that accompany seeds we collect from others, we gain knowledge of the land and the culture that produced them. Nazarea’s book Cultural Memory and Biodiversity delineates the protocol for collecting these seed stories—a process called memory banking which aims to safeguard the knowledge surrounding our domesticated crops. 

Horticulturalist and seed saving aficionado, John Coykendall has been using this memory banking technique for over forty years—seed saving between his home state of Tennessee and yearly visits to Washington Parish to collect heirloom seeds from local growers. At a recent Southern Garden Symposium in St. Francisville, he piqued the interest of growers with his stories of wash day peas, greasy beans, and leather britches. The stories, recipes, and growing techniques he learned during his four decades of seed saving have been shared in his book Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories. 

Building a Seed Saving Infrastructure and Community in Louisiana

Recognizing the current scarcity of locally-cultivated seeds in Louisiana, as well as resources on how to care and propagate them, Edwards and Voorhies are working together to aggregate their seed crops, increasing the availability of their regionally adapted seeds—a project that will require significant investments in infrastructure and land.  

The two farmers recently built a zig zag seed winnower—which streamlines the task of separating seed from chaff.  The small piece of vacuum-powered equipment, built using online instructions, cost $100 in materials, a fraction of the cost of a ready-built model. 

Together with other small farmers and seed savers, Edwards and Voorhies are also working to create a comprehensive online resource in the form of a Louisiana Seed Growers website—which in addition to providing information, will also serve to connect seed growers across the Gulf South.

These savers of domesticated seed crops are often allied with the growing movement to maintain diversity in our wild native species, which too are threatened by modern agriculture coupled with long-standing preferences in landscaping. Voorhies, whose first large scale seed saving endeavor involved working with coastal prairie species, notes how native plants can be used by farmers to attract pollinators and to improve storm water infiltration.

How To Start Saving 

If you want to start seed saving and you are already growing open-pollinated, heirloom varieties—start by marking the best-looking plants for saving seeds, then eat the rest. 

If, on the other hand, you are new to growing, or you have no clue about the horticultural traits of the plant you bought at the local big box store—start by seeking out seeds from open-pollinated heirloom plants. You can find these from local growers, or by attending a seed swap. Ask lots of questions, so that you can learn where the seeds came from, how best to grow them, and even how to prepare the resulting plants for food, medicine, or clothing.  

The public library systems in Lafayette, Orleans, and Livingston Parishes all have seed libraries at certain branches where you can actually check out seeds. They don’t expect you to return them, though several of them request you return the resulting excess seeds for sharing.  

Locally-owned seed stores will usually carry heirloom seeds, as will many chains. But remember, for seed saving purposes, they must be open-pollinated. (Avoid hybrids. Yes, even those that might have “heirloom” in their trademarked names.)

There are several online sources for regionally adapted open-pollinated seeds. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange offers seed varieties that perform well in the Southeast. Sow True Seed in South Carolina sources seeds cultivated in the Southeast (Voorhies is one of their southernmost growers and provides Reverend Taylor lima beans and a regionally-adapted Mayan okra). Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance has a unique feature that allows you to select seeds by their associated cultural cuisines.

Okra is a great starter plant for new seed savers. Edwards notes that it loves the Louisiana heat and is an amazing food and seed producer. Plants like okra, herbs, and beans require a dry method of saving seeds in which seeds are left to mature and partially dry right on the stalk.  

Plants with wet fruits like tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers require different methods. A fermentation process is involved in saving tomato and cucumber seeds, while most other wet seeds require a simple rinsing or soaking before being laid out to dry. 

To improve viability, store your seeds in airtight containers in cool, dark, dry, and stable conditions. Jars with lids are preferable, but less choosy seed savers will use any container available so long as it keeps air out.  Labeling is key— note variety, date of harvest, location, brief history, and any growing or culinary tips. 

Keep and tell the stories that accompany your seeds—the stories from the past but also the stories that crop up each season you grow and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Did the plant survive a severe drought undaunted? Did it stand back up after a hurricane blew it down? Did you learn a new way to cook it? 

To save seeds is not only to keep them for planting in the next season, but to safeguard the knowledge and hope they contain for future generations. 

Seed Saving Resources

Acadiana Native Plant Project, greauxnative.org

Louisiana Seed Growers, louisianaseeds.org

Sow True Seed, sowtrueseed.com

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, southernexposure.com

Ujamaa Cooperative Farming Alliance, ujamaaseeds.com

Wild Ones Greater Baton Rouge Chapter, greaterbatonrouge.wildones.org

Working Food’s Seed Program, workingfood.org/seeds