By: Jessica Robinson
This past weekend, I asked my husband to take me and the kids to Wethersfield, Connecticut to visit Comstock Ferre. I’d been there as a kid and held fond memories in my head of our trips there with my parents. Each year, early in the spring we would head for a day trip to Comstock Ferre and purchase our seeds for the garden along with our tomato and pepper plants. It’s something that stuck with me and now I want to share this experience with our own children.
Comstock Ferre & Co. started as Wethersfield Seed Gardens in 1811. The company has changed hands a few times over the last 10 years or so. The Gettle family purchased the company a few years back and are now working to restore it to its original glory. Any gardener at heart will love this place! I was pleasantly surprised that time has not hardly touched it. It’s like I remember it as a kid…. Simplistic, rows of vintage wooden boxes filled with Heirloom packs of seeds, books on gardening and a few simple garden tools. Simple is the way I like it, not overdone and NOT commercialized. The Gettle family also owns a sister property, called Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
Jerre and Emilee Gettle have recently released an incredible book, The Heirloom Life Gardener. I cannot tell you how incredible this book is. For anyone who loves to garden or who wants to start living a different life, focused on eating healthy and organic. This is the book! I’m so intrigued by the way the book describes the difference between Heirloom seeds and Hybrids. You probably were not aware of the difference either. An Heirloom is a seed that is open-pollinated and can be saved from year to year. (or in many cases, generation to generation) It also comes back each time you plant those seeds you saved true to form. Hybrid seeds (which are mostly what you find in the big stores and even in garden stores) are seeds that have been genetically altered. Seeds are often sterile and will not germinate if you save seeds. Heirlooms also tend to taste better. Hybrids are bred for perfection of skin thickness, perfect shape and not necessarily taste and quality. There is quite the debate on this topic, but from what I’ve learned Heirloom is the way to go. Using Heirlooms help to preserve our history and plant vegetables that are extremely tasty. If we know where our food comes from and have a bit of control, we’ll likely live a much healthier life.
April 19, 2012 at 5:38 am
I want to GO THERE. What a wonderful post. Thank you.
April 19, 2012 at 7:02 am
Beautiful pictures & great description of a trip down memory’s lane!
It reminds me of going to Nichols Garden Nursery in Albany Oregon – the seed boxes aren’t as lovely as these – but lots of old & heirloom or unusual varieties, & it’s been in the Nichols family since 1950!!
A couple of years ago, Rosemary Nichols McGee & her husband, the current owners, came to present ideas on gardening & a lovely power point presentation at our local library, & brought along a couple of seed racks!!! My former hubby’s family has ordered from them since they opened, & I’ve visited the shop several times over the years!!
THANK YOU, growers who make it possible to find & plant these heirloom seeds!!
April 19, 2012 at 2:56 pm
You can not say that Hybrids are genetically modified/altered. This is a blanket statement that could not be further from the truth. Remember that all heirlooms were hybrids at one point and now have become stable through breeding year after year. Hybrids are bred year after year using the same parent plants to get the desirable traits from the parent plants. Genetically altered or Genetically modified seeds involve removing or adding to the plants dna via a lab. If you like a hybrid vegetable, it may be one that could become an heirloom by growing it season after season and saving the plants and fruit that have the traits you are looking for. I buy only from Baker Creek, but I do not like information to be spread that is untrue.
April 21, 2012 at 7:36 pm
Lovely article and pictures. I love the spirit of what you are saying, but your statement that hybird seeds are ones that have been genetically modified is incorrect. Hybrid seeds are seeds that have been created by crossing two specific strains, always creating something specific. An “Early Girl” tomato, or most varieties of modern sweet corn, for example are hybirds. You can save the seeds and they will germinate, but what you get will not be the same as your original plant, so it’s not a very good idea to save them, you may get something that’s not very desirable. Hybrid seeds have not been genetically altered, they have just been created by crossing two very different plants to get a specific outcome.
GMO (genetically altered organisms) are the ones that have been altered in a lab. These often create plants with sterile seeds.
Hybrids and GMOs are two different things, each with their own set of problems. Heirlooms are the way to go!