On the weekend of Aug. 8 and 9, the beloved Seed Savers Exchange will celebrate its 50th anniversary of preserving our seed heritage with festivities at its homebase in Decorah, Iowa. I wanted to celebrate Seed Savers here a little, too, by learning more about some of their participatory programs that we gardeners can help with – including one called ADAPT, where gardeners trial varieties from the Seed Savers’ seed bank in their own gardens and provide feedback on their performance, to help Seed Savers understand the adaptability of these varieties to different environments around the country.
I’m joined by Mike Bollinger, Seed Savers’ executive director, and Sydney Weldon, their evaluations and trials manager, who leads the ADAPT program—a community-driven trialing initiative that connects gardeners and farmers across the U.S. with unique, open‑pollinated crops from Seed Savers’ extensive seed bank.
I suspect most every gardener knows Seed Savers for its seed catalog of irresistible open-pollinated varieties, but Mike and Sydney are here to tell us about other projects like ADAPT and more that we can engage with.
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