Sometimes in life we have the blessing to meet very special people.
In 2016, after we had just moved to the Ozarks and I was researching Lyme Disease as ticks are very bad here, I found out that Astragalus is a very good Chinese immunity boosting medicine to strengthen one’s system. Stephen Harrod Buhner is my main go-to for researching and understanding Lyme from an herbalist perspective. He also has a handful of other books (buy them all!) that I believe are truly amazing and should be on every bookshelf. Herbal Antibiotics is one and as I was reading the section on Astragalus, I read a little blurb on how to grow Astragalus well, and he sited it from Elixir Farm in Missouri. Oh! I thought, where is that? Turns out it is in our county!
As my relationship with this very special individual, Vinnie, from Elixir deepens, Ini and I have come to be a part of one of her creations that she started in the 80s, The Ozark Seed Bank. We drove by the Ozark Seed Bank when we were looking for land and went WHAT! We have to meet those people!
Vinnie has had some incredible people flow through Elixir over the years (and live there and co-create projects). One such person is Steven Foster, the stunningly talented plant photographer – you’ll see his name on the Peterson Field Guide for Medicinal Plants and Herbs as he took all the photos and co-authored with David Duke! He’s also traveled the world working with plants and contributed over the years to many successful (and now big) herbal businesses.
About two months ago, Steven came to speak at the Ozark Seed Bank, which is also known under its non-profit name One Garden (OG). Website: http://www.onegarden.org/
It was a really special night as Steven walked us through hundreds of gorgeous plant slides and reminisced on his time spent in the Ozarks. I don’t think I can say this for any other presentation I’ve ever listened to, but my attention was seriously engaged for every slide! That’s how interesting his life in the world of plants has been.
(Steven and Ini IDing some plants)
Today Ini and I went over to OG to go through the extensive seed collection there. Seeds of Change’s Alan Kapuler is good friends with Vinnie and he donated his entire “Deep Diversity” collection to the seed bank. You can imagine our excitement as two plant geeks when Vinnie offered that we could use the seeds from the bank! This fulfills our lifetime dream of stewarding human/plant connection and introducing and popularizing diverse perennial and rare plants. Synergy!
(Refrigerated Seed Vault at OG)
We went there today after I looked through the selections and found some very intriguing (some I hadn’t even heard of) plants. I mostly focused on greens able to take the cold, or interesting varieties of plants I already have, like the Montagmy Dandelion. It’s basically a selected cultivar from France with bigger roots and leaves.
A few more unique selections that caught my eye:
The seed collection has thousands of seeds and we are so abundantly grateful to Vinnie (who donated her entire Chinese seed collection- that’s a story for another day), Seeds of Change and all of the humans throughout time who have collected seed from a plant they liked, carried it with them for a time, and passed it on. We are who we are because of these ancestors and the plants we are so familiar with today, are intricately connected to our human story. This is truly mind boggling when we take some time to dwell on it, and a true blessing!
As GMOs and Monsanto seek to change the scope of seed saving all around the world and, as a result, many farmers commit suicide, lose their livelihoods, and cannot afford the seed they now must buy after farming and saving seeds since the dawn of agriculture, seed banks and people who save and share seed are more important than ever!
For the OG, we are trying to give back and participate so we are taking many of these seeds that haven’t been propagated since the 90’s and letting them go to seed so we can refresh the seed banks. It’s a win/win, we get to have this incredible biodiversity, rare plants from around the world, and nutrient rich seed varieties and the Ozark Seed Bank gets some new energy.
This is the power of seeds, anyone can grow the plants, save them and SHARE them. The earth is truly abundant, it is human civilization as it currently stands that works in scarcity mentalities and zero sum realities.
So So grateful to the seeds and people who save and share them!!!
If you like this post and are also interested in sharing the love between plants and humans, resteem this post and write one reason you love plants below. That will enter you into into our Free Giveaway (3 winners pulled on Dec 15th! In USA only due to customs, sorry.). We are giving away three packets of Japanese Gobo which is a cultivated edible burdock. You might be familiar with the common burdock, and this burdock has tastier smaller roots that are very easy to grow and delicious! Incredibly popular in Japan! Share Seeds! Inspiration to pass on the Gift!
Have you ever visited a seed bank or do you have one near you? We need more of them all over!