September Book Review

I just finished reading another great book called "The Heirloom Life Gardener" by Jere & Emilee Gettle. It's a book about a man's passion for saving  heirloom, open pollinated seeds which turned into a mission to preserve as many varieties of heirloom seeds as possible. The author, Jerre Gettle, is co-founder of The Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company where they sell over 1400 varieties of heirloom seeds. He also owns two other retail operations, The Petaluma Seed Bank in Petaluma California and Comstock, Ferre & Co. in Wethersfield, Connecticut.
In the book, Jere talks about how his passion for farming started at an early age, planting his first seeds at age 3. When he was 17 he started his first mail order seed company from his bedroom in Missouri, which quickly turned into a very successful business. He talks about his travels to Mexico, Thailand and other countries in search of new heirloom seeds to bring back to grow on his farm.

Jerre decided to start preserving heirloom seeds when he discovered that most of the seeds available today from big seed companies are either GMO (Genetically Modified) or Hybrid (which won't breed true and will revert back to one of it's parent types when saved). He began to realize that a lot of the old favorites were no longer available and set out to preserve as many as possible and to educate people about the importance of preserving seeds.

There is a food movement underway and more people than ever are starting to take back control over the quality of the food they put into their bodies by planting backyard gardens or buying locally from their organic farmers markets. Another step in that process is to grow heirloom varieties and save the seeds for next years garden. Heirloom varieties are open pollinated, non-GMO, non-hybrid and will grow true every time.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is passionate about gardening, is interested in growing heirloom varieties and wants to learn more about saving seeds. This is definitely one that I will be adding to my library!