Do you ever listen to Stuart McLean on "The Vinyl Café"? If you do, you know how his wonderful, wonderful stories can move you to out-loud laughter, or heart-wrenching tears of sadness. His travels around the country with the program are fascinating, and a recent episode especially caught my attention.
Stuart was in Mabou, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, regaling us with the latest of our friend Dave's adventures. I missed the first part of the narrative, but when I joined the story in progress, Dave was telling his son Sam about someone named Gabriel Dubois, who was trying to get the town to change their mind about cutting down a beautiful old oak tree to make way for a road. Gabriel said that cars have wheels and can go around to oak. So on tree-cutting day, Gabriel leaned a wooden chair against the tree, sat back and made himself comfortable, and refused to move. In the end, happily, the old oak tree (now called Gaby's Oak) was not cut down, and the area became a small park (now called Gaby's Park).
As Dave related this story to Sam, he was rummaging around in his fridge, emerging at last with a sealed tin. When he opened it, the tin was full of acorns, which Dave had collected from beneath Gaby's Oak. Dave's dream was to send an acorn to people he knew who had lived in the town and moved away, so that "Gaby's Oaks" would be growing across the country.
The rest of the story continued in Stuart's sparkling style, but I was contemplating the idea of the acorns. Isn't that partly why so many gardeners are fascinated by heritage seeds: the idea of continuing the past into the future? There's something really great about growing, say, a certain kind of heirloom tomato. Join me on a flight of whimsy, now: maybe that heirloom tomato was grown by a young, eager pioneer wife on the prairies, perhaps a hundred years ago. While we might look at the irregularly-shaped fruit and wonder what all the fuss was about, it must have been a thrilling moment for our pioneer wife to pick her first ripe tomato and serve it to her family.
Perhaps she cut it in half, or in six or eight pieces so that everyone in the family could have a taste. How delicious it must have been, to savor that sun-ripened flavor in their sparse diet.
I think that's the attraction of heirloom seeds: to keep the past alive; to help maintain seeds that are endangered; to maintain seeds that have exceptional performance; and perhaps to maintain a line of organic seeds. If you type in "heirloom seed companies in Canada" into your computer, you will get a whole list of seed companies that carry these gems. Maybe next spring you might want to give them a try!
The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be holding their annual general meeting on Wednesday, November 24. This meeting is meant for members only, but family and guests are welcome! The evening includes supper, our meeting, a silent auction, and then an armchair trip to Hawaii! If you don't have your tickets yet, call Liz at 782-2830.
We've gone from our first snowstorm back in to a beautiful fall, then back to more seasonable temperatures again. It was a nice break while it lasted! I wonder what the winter will bring? Well, this year we've all earned a well-deserved rest! Have a good week!
