Driftless Historium & Mount Horeb Area Historical Society hosts seed swap
Last weekend, the Driftless Historium & Mount Horeb Area Historical Society hosted a seed swap in conjunction with the Driftless Seed Project, a Back Home Farm (Blue Mounds, WI), the Mount Horeb Area Community Garden, and Naturalist & Educator:Catherine Young. According to the Driftless Historium’s website, the Driftless Seed Project seeks to educate about the intersection of sustainable agriculture and cultural heritage, by identifying and sharing locally cultivated seeds and their stories from the Driftless area of Southwest Wisconsin.
“This is sponsored by the Driftless Seed Project and our museum, the Driftless Historium, is part of the Driftless Seed Project,” said Driftless Historium Executive Director, Destinee Udelhoven. She said the Historium got involved as a historical society when she was approached by community member Doug Butikofer. He wanted to bring a seed library that could distribute local seeds for people to plant to the community. “I thought this really isn't our purview. And the more we talked about it, I'm learning along the way, about seed stories and the families who have carried these seeds forward for generations. So, we are hoping as we move forward, to find those stories and seeds in the community that have adapted to the Driftless landscape and that we can perpetuate in the area,” said Udelhoven.
She feels a seed library may be kind of a foreign concept to people. In the beginning of this phase, the project can provide education, bringing awareness on gardening in general. “People are used to the idea of saving their own seeds, and understand why that's important. When I was growing up, you just got your seeds at the grocery stores. I never thought about it, you know, where they came from? And then I thought, we have settlers’ stories. The settlers brought their own seeds. We know that long before then, the Native Americans were gardening, they had sophisticated technology that settlers took advantage of. And so the Driftless Historium came on board the Driftless Seed Project as a partner, and a seed swap. Today is one of our programs where we're trying to, once again, get the word out about the concept of as a community, you know, developing your own local food. I'm super thrilled that people are actually bringing seeds in today (to swap). We didn't even expect that to happen. We thought it would just be come and take seeds. We understood that this was a new concept. We're happy that it's going as well as it is.”
Udelhoven said she hopes that the idea of starting a seed library and holding an annual seed swap grows within the community, keeping in mind people could be thinking about saving their seeds. Udelhoven pointed out, “the seeds that you grew and that are adapted to your farm and your soil and your backyard, are the best seeds that you can have.”
Doug Butikofer, owner of Back Home Farm in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, not far from Mt. Horeb, has a personal connection to seed swapping. Butikofer’s family first moved to the Driftless area in 1853. “So, we've been here a long time in Elgin, Iowa, part of the Driftless area in northeast Iowa. I grew up on a dairy farm. I think my first memory of seeds was back with my grandparents growing their own food on the farm. I remember my grandma saving seeds every year. I loved it in the spring because we would pull the seeds out there, and look at the different types of seeds that she had. And that's kind of where I got the interest in it,” he said.
Later on in life, Butikofer decided that it's important to save varieties of seeds that may be disappearing. “Because the older folks that were saving the seeds, saving the stories of the seeds, are dying off and the younger crowd is no longer gardening, or no longer know how to save the seed. So, their parents may pass away and nobody takes the seeds, they don't know what to do with it. So, they just throw it out and that's the end of the story and end of the variety. So that's where I felt like we need to try to do our part to save seed varieties and save the seeds stories that come along with them.”
He pointed out; a lot of the stories are interesting. Many families have raised specific seed varieties for years, maybe hundreds of years. “They brought them from wherever they came from and there may be a story behind that. I felt it was important to find those stories. We're still looking because I think there's a lot of people that grow seed in the driftless area. There may be stories that we just haven't discovered yet,” he said with a smile.
Butikofer was pleased with the turn out for the event saying, “To bring awareness to what we're doing and just bring people out a little bit more, it's exciting. Exciting to see that people are growing food again. Some said, ‘I don't know how to garden, I don't know how to do this’. But they're trying.”
Lynn Messinger, one of the founders of the Mount Horeb Area Community Garden, sees the garden as a nurturer of the Driftless Seed Project, providing a community-based means to grow seeds that have been handed down generation to generation along with the stories.
Born and raised in Barneveld, Wisconsin, and a lifelong resident, Messinger said she and others looked into the idea of a community garden in Mount Horeb in 2017. “We were up and running by the next year. We had eighteen 20’ by 20’ plots that first year, and then the next year we expanded to twenty-six plots. That's what we have now. It's not bad and we've kept it full pretty much from the get-go,” she said with a chuckle.
The community garden is a collaborative with the board of the Mt. Horeb Parks, Recreation, and Forestry Commission, and is located at the dead end of East Spelman Street.
Messinger said the garden has been involved with the seed project from the beginning and looks forward to its continued growth. They also hope to put in a three-part rain garden to help mitigate flooding, and pointed out that they have received three cedar beds from the Dane County Garden Network. “So, we've already got two of them rented out, and then the other one is in the edible perennial plantings. We'll plant strawberries and things like that and what we grow will go to the Senior Center. It is part of the Neighbors Helping Neighbors. We have a designated plot just for them that is run by volunteers and delivered to each organization each week.”
The community garden has been gaining popularity Messinger said. “We have nine people on the waiting list this year. I'm hoping we can get most of them in if they take a half plot. We do know that the village does appreciate what we're doing.” She added that they work with the Girl Scouts, community service workers, and hope to work with the high school having students grow the garden seed starts.
Though seed banking and sharing has been a crucial part of perpetuating a quality sustainable food source in years gone by, there is renewed interest that is gaining momentum. Thanks to the Driftless Seed Project and ones like it, quality heirloom seeds and their stories will not be taken for granted nor forgotten.
