In conjunction with my Baker Creek Heirloom Seed giveaway, I wanted to highlight some of the wonderful foods that are threatened to go extinct if it weren’t for people like Jere Gettle and the numerous home gardeners who’ve taken on the task of growing and preserving these rare varieties and their seeds. By growing endangered and threatened food varieties, you help ensure their survival. An added benefit to selecting types from your food region is that most of these vegetables and fruits have been grown there for generations making them the best-suited for your specific areas, a terroir of produce, if you will.
In the order of the places I’ve personally lived:
In Missouri, for instance, RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions) has identified the Hutterite Soup Bean or the Lakota Squash.
Hutterite Soup Bean
Lakota Squash
If you live in Louisiana, you might consider the Seminole Pumpkin and Datil Pepper endangered foods. The Datil is also listed on the Ark of Taste.
Seminole Pumpkin
Datil Pepper
For Tennessee, you might consider growing the endangered Honey Drip Cane Sorghum or threatened Old Time Tennessee Melon.
Honey Drip Sorghum
Old Time Tennessee Melon
Texas is a big, diverse state with four separate North American food nations from which to choose. In the far west with an arid climate, one might grow the Hopi Yellow-Meated Watermelon. In East Texas, one can grow foods similar to the Upper South as well as those of the Gulf Coast, yearly rainfall totals depending. In the center of the state, one might attempt foods of the Midwest plains.
Hopi Yellow-Meated Watermelon
In Pennsylvania, I grow Amish Paste Tomatoes and Sibley (Pike’s Peak) Squash.
Amish Paste Tomato
Sibley or Pike’s Peak Squash
If you have any questions about what might grow best where you live, feel free to ask in the comments. In the meantime, you have until Wednesday, March 4th, 2015 at 5PM EST to enter Because Yum’s seed giveaway from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
* All photos from this page from Baker Creek.
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