Heirloom seeds will survive if more people plant them, and talking about them with other gardeners and sharing them is the way to get more people to plant them. I’ve been doing a lot of sharing and receiving, and it’s wonderful.

My friend from Tennessee gave me Hopi orange Limas early this year.  I planted some and have never been as happy with a garden item as I am with them.  (Lots more next year!) I have now given some to my insurance man who lives two counties away. Eliza’s parents are visiting from Colorado, and will go home with Hopi seeds for next year.  They will also take home some of Eliza’s purple jalapenos.

The Thai yard long beans are traveling far and wide too. Eliza’s parents will take some of them home, I gave some to a contractor who does some work for me, and I took some to my friends in Tennessee when I went to visit.  While I was there, my friend  also gave me a ghost pepper to dry for seed, some Hopi blue corn for corn meal, and some beans that are  only found in  that southern area.  They are called turkey craw beans and I’ll be planting them and the corn next year. We’ll see if the huge squirrel population around here will actually let us have any of the corn.  I can’t sit in the yard with a sling shot all day long, lol.

Hot peppers are good for some people and some can’t have them or don’t like them.  My dentist really likes hot peppers; he slices scorpion peppers and ghosts raw and puts them on his pizza.  I tasted some of his hot pepper jelly made with those two and it was wild hot.  I gave him some purple jalapenos cos he never knew they existed, and was glad to have them to add to his hot pepper collection.  In turn, he gave me ghost and scorpion seeds. Scorpions come from Trinidad and are supposed to be the hottest peppers of all. We’ll be real careful with those!

Eliza has a coworker who likes hot peppers so she will take some ghosts and scorpions to give to him. He had given us several kinds of seeds in the spring.

Some states have laws that prohibit individuals from selling seeds,  but no state that I can see in research has any law about simply sharing them.  We need to keep standing up for the right to grow the foods of our choice, and that includes sharing seeds with others. If we share our heirloom seeds, the strains will stay alive.  That’s critical to our on-going food supply. There is lots of information about the whole concept of saving seeds on the internet for anyone who wants to learn more.

I hope your gardens grow well. Spring will be coming after the earth takes a little rest. I’ll be ready!