So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

What is the deal with most seeds you get at your local garden store. I seen some a few days ago in the local hardware store, "Burpee brand" I think they were. The were labeled organic - from plants raised with no pesticides or chemicals. I want to start a garden with nothing that Monsanto has had its hands on. Its too late this year to plant corn and tomatoes, but I might plant some turnips for the fall.

I was kind of late about getting my raised garden beds built, but they are ready, about 100 sq ft of composted growing space in two beds. I might till the ground next to the beds instead of building more beds.

So where do I start? I want to get some seeds now. Is it "Heirloom seeds" that I need to look for? Where does that name come from?

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

If you want to try to save your own seed then you need "heirloom" or non-hybrid seeds. Do some research because different species of plants have to have different spacings between varieties to prevent cross-pollination. For instance, if you plant two varieties of corn they need to be at least 1000 feet apart. You can sometimes plant two varieties with different maturities and stagger the plantings so that the two varieties are pollinating at different times.

There are a lot of hybrid varieties that are not GM. They are just the result of simple plant breeding. I prefer to plant heirloom if possible, but have planted some non-GM hybrids at times.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

I think the GM foods are mainly Cotton, Corn, Canola and one other I forget. Sugar beets are also genetically modified now. I don't know if Burpee is owned by Monsanto or not but they have their fingers into many of the seed companies now. Heirloom refers to 'old time' or plants that people have been saving seeds from to grow the same variety. Other than this there are many fine 'hybrids'. Hybrids are derived from crossing different cultivars, kind of like a donkey and horse can produce a mule I guess. With hybrids you cannot expect to save seed, plant it and get the same plant to grow, it just won't happen. If you plant seeds from a sphaggetti squash (a hybrid plant) you will get all sorts of weird things like gourds and stuff. If you plant seeds from hybrid tomatoes you will likely just get cherry tomatoes. Hope this helps.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

If you are planning on growing a garden to become proficient at it in case of a EOTWAWKI event, then you need to stick with heirloom so that you'll be able to save and re-plant seeds from year to year.

However, if you don't care about that and just want to grow a garden for fun/food, then in a lot of cases you'll get better yields with less disease problems by planting hybrid varieties...

It really depends on your growing area and the variety--DYODD.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

Local farmers' markets are an excellent source of started plants. I, personally, prefer heirloom varieties, but others may recommend hybrids. Heirlooms are the old varieties that have not been crossed and are true to their origins. It might be late to start seeds for this year depending on where you live, so started plants may be your only option for this season. One of my favorite seed houses is Landreth Seeds. The oldest seed house in the country. Enjoy your garden. There is not much that compares to growing your own foods.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

www.seedsavers.com
www.rareseeds.com
www.southernexposure.com

Sometimes you can find heirloom started plants at the farm store

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

I've been told that pretty much all seed varieties not specifically marked "hybrid" are considered heirloom. GMO seed is not generally sold to the home gardener, only the larger farms. If they ARE GMO seeds, they are legally supposed to be marked as suck either by the "Roundup Ready" name or otherwise.


I would suggest you buy a couple of good gardening books before you till. You can't grow "true" heirlooms for saving seed unless you keep some things from cross-pollinating. Cucumbers, melons, brassicas & squash all readily cross-pollinate as do carrots, dill and Queen Anne's Lace and will give you a hybrid the second year if you try to save seed. Sometimes you get a happy accident and something you can eat, but most other times it's a waste of garden space and soil nutrients to grow it.

I highly recommend Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza for her addition of helpful hints and any organic gardening manual by Rodale Press.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

BTW, "hybrid" is NOT the same as GMO. If you don't grasp the difference, READ to find out why.

Also, some HYBRIDS are worth buying seed each year as they have been groomed to be specifically resistant to some pests. That means that an heirloom pest-resistant variety of say squash might have been crossed with another heirloom squash that is NOT pest-resistant to get a better variety of plant that requires less pesticides or pest control. It also means the seeds from the squash you get will or will not produce the same thing next year.

Reading will save you a crapload of time experimenting. Any REAL gardener will tell you, you will never learn it all..... we all learn something new every year.

Edit to add: You'll also want

The New Seed Starter's Handbook by Nancy Bubel

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners by Suzanne Ashworth and Kent Whealy

Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times (Mother Earth News Wiser Living Series) by Steve Solomon

Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long by Eliot Coleman, Barbara Damrosch, and Kathy Bray
- anything by Coleman actually

and

Secrets of Plant Propagation: Starting Your Own Flowers, Vegetables, Fruits, Berries, Shrubs, Trees, and Houseplants by Lewis Hill

I chose the last one over other propagation books with higher reader ratings because it specifically covers your edible plants at length.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

you can also prepare your own seeds. among other plants, i tried this with tomatoes last year. i used tomatoes from a neighbor's plot at the community garden ... he abandoned his plot mid-season.

i squished them out over a big plastic tub, threw away the part without seeds, then let the mess dry. i ended up with this film of dried tomatoes & dried tomato seeds. it has a texture a lot like paper. when it was time to plant, i just ripped off a piece that had a seed in it, planted it, voila.

i've been collecting food & tree seeds for a few years. i learned one thing - they need to be stored in a metal box. a very determined rat decimated the collection.

i like experimenting with seeds. e.g. last year's wheat, i took one batch of seeds & put it in the freezer, another batch did not go in the freezer. (sometimes freezing helps to 'set' a seed & to increase viability; i think it helps if the seed dries out first).

anyway, in the case of wheat, it turned out that, it did not like freezing. i had 100% sprouts on the non-frozen, 0% sprouts on the frozen.

long story short, a lot of the food in the fruit & vegetable section at an organic market is also a source of viable seeds.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

I believe any seeds certified organic are not only non-GMO but also non-hybrid.

I like to get my seeds from here:
seedsofchange.com

I am not sure but aren't commercial potatoes also usually GMO?? Something about adding a BT gene to kill potato beetles or something?

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

Not to argue semantics with you, but ANY seed can be organic. Organic is simply the process of growing without using certain chemicals. As an example, I give you this:

http://www.gardensalive.com/product....cd2=1245774738

There are many varieties of "hybrids" which are simply 2 or more varieties of any crop that has been cross bred to get a better pest or disease resistant product. You can't replicate the hybrid from seed because the seeds usually end up sterile or produce characteristics of one of the varieties used to make the hybrid.

More here on the differences: http://gardening.about.com/od/vegeta.../Heirlooms.htm

When you look at a pack of Black Beauty Eggplant in the store, it is an heirloom... even if it isn't marked as such because "Black Beauty" is one of the heirloom variety of that type of eggplant. The only way you could know this is to read, read, read.

Also from the link:

Patented means that you cannot reproduce the plant. You must buy the plant from the source or grow it from seed from the source.

It's a little confusing, but if you take the time to Google it and read as many gardening tomes as you can, you'll eventually pick this up and understand it. I worked in a plant nursery for a few years, so I had to learn this. I'm glad I did because it makes buying seeds just that much easier as I know which ones to avoid and can eliminate those from my options right away.

If you shop exclusively with companies like seedsavers.org, you will only be offered heirloom. That does not mean the seeds are organic. They are only organic if they say so in the description or on the packet. Personally, I don't think it's that effing important to start with organic seed.... it's more important in how you grow the plant.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

Yes, you can get some seed this way, but MOST produce is picked way earlier than it needs to be for saving the seeds. For example, squash needs to be over ripened on the vine to get really good seed. Cucumbers & peppers as well. If the seeds were allowed to mature before selling the produce, the produce would not be as good for eating.

All veggies at an organic market are not heirlooms, either.

I'm not sure what the aversion is to just sucking it up and buying seeds so that you KNOW you are getting viable, good quality seeds to start with when you decide to garden and save your own seeds, but making sure you start with good heirloom seeds in the beginning will save you a LOT of time and trouble down the road.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

One more thing about saving seeds from produce you buy:

You have no idea what the farm situation was where the produce was grown. Some farmers save seed and some buy new seed each year because they have no way to separate varieties that will cross pollinate.

For example, if a farmer is growing heirloom yellow crookneck and zucchini in the same field, they will cross pollinate making the seeds that are produced a hybrid of the 2. The plants grown from these seeds will probably not produce either yellow crookneck OR zucchini, but a cross of them.

Melons, squash, cucurbits and other plants readily cross pollinate if not separated by fairly extensive distances or are pollinated by hand.

Re: So I want to plant an organic garden with no GM plants
 

It's a talent to make good seed even more than it is to garden and make good produce. It's good to have that goal in mind, but take it one step at a time.

Remember, if you produce your own seeds, or get them elsewhere, you can get through the whole season before realizing you've made a disasterous mistake. Like growing gourds and not pumpkins/winter squash.

Likewise, it's possible as above you will have 0% germination and miss the planting window before you realize the mistake. You cannot prevent the first, but for the 2nd--and for older seeds--you can overbuy the seed and test your own germination rates by picking 10 random seeds and keeping them in a wet paper towel until they sprout (if ever). That may be a great loss for houshold sizes, but it would prevent a total failure.

Buy your core seeds for now and learn seed saving on the side. It's a high level art.

TS