The most glamorous menus showcase heirloom produce. Farmers markets overflow with exotic shapes and colors. From the pages of small catalogs, sprout seeds with names like Rainbow Inca Corn, Appaloosa beans, Red Alpine fraises des bois, Zapotec pleated tomatoes. Or is it something deep in our biological unconscious that gets a thrill out of planting a seed re-discovered after centuries of neglect, or out of collecting the seeds from some treasured flower, or a particularly tasty tomato, and saving it for another season.
Seed saving is all of the above, and more.
In the simple act of planting a seed the gardener simultaneously blows a kiss to the past, and guarantees the future. The Irish potato famine of the 1830s perfectly illustrates the implications of a dwindling bio-gene pool. In a classic case of putting all its eggs in one basket, Ireland had planted its meager soil to a single variety of potato. Replicating a single set of genes, this was monocropping on a disastrous scale, and when a virus came along to which these genes were susceptible, there were no alternative potato crops remaining to feed the country. And, since the potato was the staple of the Irish diet, most of the Irish who who couldn't emigrate starved to death.