I planted four kinds of beets in my garden this weekend. Somebody grew those seeds somewhere, and it wasn’t me. I also planted two kinds of lettuce, one of which I saved from last winter. However, we’ve read about farmers going out business because of climate change, trade tariffs and the pandemic, so who is going to grow my beet seeds six years from now? If this year has taught me anything, it is not to take things for granted.
Plus, we are faced with the potential long-term environmental consequences of the upcoming election.
Regardless of that outcome, every gardener every year can save a few seeds and plant them again year after year. Just learn the basics and reap your rewards. It is very satisfying to continue a lineage of lettuce or peppers, for example, for years. Those are your heirlooms.
And this line of thinking led me to Svarlbard, an archipelago halfway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. It is within the Arctic Circle, a snow-covered and challenging place to live, but on the island of Spitsbergen is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, basically a warehouse space carved deep inside a mountain reachable by a 390-foot tunnel. It is a cooperative venture between the government of Norway and the Global Crop Diversity Trust designed to be a secure place for storing seeds from all over the globe.
Seeds first arrived at Svalbard in 2008. Within five years, one-third of the genetic diversity being preserved in genebanks worldwide had backups stored there. Within 10 years, the number of samples stored went from 320,549 to 983,524.
The natural temperature inside the vault is about 21° F. Conservationist Cory Fowler led the effort to create the seed vault with the goal of saving spare copies of seeds from everywhere. There are at least 1750 genebanks worldwide, and seeds are sent to Svalbard for storage as insurance against losing valuable varieties.
A genebank in the Philippines was damaged by a flood and genebanks in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq by war. Others lose seeds because of equipment malfunction or funding cuts.
Those who planned the Svalbard project believe it can preserve most seeds for hundreds of years and some of the important grains for even thousands of years, and Norwegian law prohibits genetically modified seeds from being deposited in the Svalbard vault.
The Australian Grain Genebank collects and preserves seeds from endemic wild species of Australia which have been determined to be critical to developing future plant varieties. This organization not only preserves seeds but participates in research by distributing seeds to scientists who study plant resistance to weather conditions, pests and diseases.
The Millennium Seed Bank Partnership, coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens in England, also intends to be insurance against extinction of plants by preserving seed supplies in underground frozen vaults. It sends scientists worldwide in search of specimens, and in 2007 it registered its billionth seed, a type of African bamboo.
Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization which preserves heirloom plant varieties. It is one of the largest nongovernmental seedbanks in the United States. They have a collection of more than 20,000 heirloom varieties, and gardeners can order seeds from their collection online.
Baker Creek Seeds is another seed distributor which preserves and distributes heirloom varieties from around the world, in particular 19th century seeds from Europe and Asia.
I also save seeds. I have kept snow pea, lettuce, pepper and dill varieties going for more than a decade. Today I saved seeds from watermelons, purple pole beans and an orange main crop tomato for next year. For all gardeners, next year’s garden is already at hand if we take time to save seeds.