Heirloom Plants Available At Herb & Garden Faire

Joanne Ranck Dirks, assistant manager of farm and gardens at Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, loves to tell the stories of the heirloom seeds she and her manager, Joe Schott, have preserved as part of the organization's Heirloom Seed Project. "What makes our program unique is that it's about preservation and commitment to our community in preserving these treasures," said Dirks, who noted that seed packets bear the names of the donors and as much history as can fit on the label.

Plants grown from preserved seeds will be available at the Herb & Garden Faire to be held at the museum, 2451 Kissel Hill Road, Lancaster, on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. "For the Herb & Garden Faire, we want vegetables, herbs, perennials, and annuals," said Dirks. According to the museum, many longtime vendors will return for this year's fair. The event was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

One story Dirks likes to share is that of Anna Lee Ault, a 95-year-old resident of Bluffton, Ind., who sent an envelope of tomato seeds to the project in September of 2018. Ault wrote that she had been growing the tomatoes for 50 years and that they were the best tasting she had ever had, but she could not remember the original name. She said she got them from her neighbor Martha Linn. "We grew them out the next year, and they were good, and then COVID hit, and we shut down," said Dirks, who sent Ault a few packages of Anna Lee Ault tomato seeds. She was quickly contacted by a Bluffton weekly newspaper doing a story on Ault's seeds. The story ran in the Feb. 18, 2021, issue, and Dirks was soon besieged with requests for the seeds from Ault's relatives and friends. "The story went live on Friday morning, and by noon, I was getting orders online," recalled Dirks, who has sold 160 packages of Ault's seeds, which breaks all project records.

Dirks, who got involved in the project in 2014, said that the museum has been collecting heirloom seeds since 1986. "The commitment is to preserve seeds that have been donated to us by especially local people of Pennsylvania German heritage, but not just Lancaster County," said Dirks, who noted that heirloom vegetables have a taste advantage. "We have so many different kinds, and they are wonderful," she said. Plants are grown in three large nursery buildings plus two kitchen gardens on site at the museum. The seed project catalog features more than 25 types of tomato seeds and about 10 types of beans, along with beets, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, peppers, popcorn, melon, special white pear-shaped pumpkins, and squash, among others.

Seeds received by the project are preserved in accordance with recommendations from Seed Savers Exchange based in Iowa. "(The organization) tells us how many we need to grow to capture all the biodiversity within that seed," noted Dirks. The Heirloom Seed Catalog is now online at http://www.landisvalleymuseum.org/explore/heirloom-seed-project.