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News from Garfield Farm |
Knowledge of the past is proving critical to
the future of the country and Garfield Farm Museum’s 17th Annual
Heirloom Garden Show on Sunday August 27 from 11 am - 4 pm is just such
a wealth of accumulated knowledge.
The wonders of technology and an excessive
focus on popular culture have disconnected most Americans from the
basics of survival. A rise in gas prices is greatly upsetting daily
life that makes the ability of GPS direction finding system in
one’s car irrelevant to simply being able to afford where one has
to go. The historic record of temperatures and the glacial record have
all the leading scientists convinced of global warming. The history of
interest rates and economic cycles proves houses
should be considered homes first and investments second.
These seemingly unrelated factors, oil costs,
global warming, and housing sprawl have a very direct connection to
plant genetics that our country depends upon for survival. Current
agriculture depends on oil for powering tractors, making fertilizer and
pesticides, and shipping food. It assumes there is no limit to
productive soils or water supply. Increase in oil costs, shifts in
temperature and rain patterns, and continued bulldozing of productive
land for houses will make the current era of cheap food a fond memory.
Only those crops, fruits, and vegetables that can survive well with a
minimum of oil inputs, hotter and drier extremes, and grow in less
productive soils will be critical for such an uncertain future of
change.
The Heirloom Garden Show reflects hundreds of years
of breeding varieties of plants to meet different conditions.
Resistance to disease, ability to thrive in dry, wet, weedy conditions,
or poor soils are just some of the factors that shaped the genetics of
our food. The mass market depends on that one or two varieties that
produce the highest return. Offering food or any product at the
cheapest price does not necessarily show all the real costs of
production to a society. Tax dollars are spent to subsidize everything
from highways, irrigation systems, and political stability in oil
producing regions so these hidden costs still hit everyone’s
wallet. This makes genetic diversity critical to respond to ever
changing conditions.
This is such a critical issue that 100 nations
have endorsed the high security Svalbard International Seed Vault on a
remote Artic Circle island to preserve millions of seeds of all know
varieties on earth. The Global Crop Diversity Trust,
coordinating the vault’s creation, is making a seed bank of
the last resort. However, the best way to preserve genetics is to
actively grow the plants. Freezing seeds is not a guarantee that all
will sprout if needed. Backyard gardeners, third world
traditional farmers, and preservation groups like the Seed Savers
Exchange of Decorah, IA keep varieties viable by growing them year
after year insuring a fresh seed source.
The Heirloom Garden Show will feature
gardeners and produce growers from the Great Lakes region to display,
offer for tasting or sell their bounty that is in season. August of
course is the month for tomatoes. This being one of the most popular
vegetables (technically a fruit - the seeds are inside) visitors are
always amazed to see all shapes, sizes and colors at the show. In
contrast to culinary plants, the museum also grows a variety of old
fashioned flowers, many the ancestors to popular
modern hybrids. This year, most of these antique flowers were
grown from seed produced by last year?s flowers at the farm. Balsams,
kiss me over the garden gate, spider flower, love in a mist, four
o’clocks are just some of the fanciful names once
familiar to gardeners of 100 years ago, that can be seen at the show.
Many of the exhibitors are members of the Seed
Savers Exchange, a remarkable grass roots effort begun in 1975 and that
has expanded to 889 acre site with 51 organic garden plots with
isolated gardens to prevent cross pollination of the over 3000
varieties grown each year out of a 25,000 variety collection.
Located in Decorah, Iowa, Seed Savers has annually received a portion
of the proceeds from the Heirloom Garden Show.
The focal point of the museum, the 1846 brick
tavern will also be open for tours. Food and refreshments will be
available from the Inglenook Pantry of Geneva, IL. The show is $6 for
adults and $2 for children under 13 years of age. For information
contact 630 584-8485 or email info@garfieldfarm.org. The museum is
located 5 miles west of Geneva, IL off ILL Rt.38 on Garfield Road. This
historically intact former 1840s Illinois prairie farmstead is being
restored as an 1840s working farm museum by donors and volunteers from
around the country.