Seedier and seedier

Stacey Hubbs of Edible Antiques sits in her workshop with a collection of heirloom seeds yet to be cleaned and packaged.

Seed lovers will get their fill Saturday

As February draws to an end, gardeners like self-professed seed geek Stacey Hubbs are yearning to dig their fingers into the spring soil and plunk in the first seedlings of the season. Not that Hubbs is twiddling her thumbs.

The owner of Edible Antiques, a Countybased company that sells an astonishing variety of heirloom seeds, has a home office filled with seeds in various stages of preparation, from the ones that still need to finish drying and cleaning to the ones that are painstakingly packaged in hand-painted envelopes, ready to ship to customers who have mail-ordered things like Missouri Pink Love Apple tomato seed, or Mexican Hat flower seed.

Hubbs began with an interest in local food during her teen job at Buddha Dog a decade ago. When she moved on to a job at Vicki’s Veggies at age 20, her interest grew into a love. And that slowly became a love of all things seedy.

“I delved into saving seed,” says Hubbs. “The first connection would probably be the seed sanctuary in Kingston. It’s the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul seed sanctuary. And the people who were running it at the time were Robert and Carol Mouk. They’re this amazing, mystical old couple, who have the most vast, amazing seedy knowledge ever.

“I got super inspired by them because they’re amazing, and they were saving seeds for all of the reasons that I wanted to as well, mostly just because they were super obsessed with beautiful old vegetables. They were really fascinated with the history behind them and the awesome stories.”

Hubbs began to specialize in seed saving at Vicki’s, a practice that ensures plants mostsuited to the soil they’re grown in are preserved.

Slowly, a hobby turned into an obsession. Hubbs amassed a vast knowledge of heirloom varieties of tomatoes and beans, learning not only the use of the vegetables themselves, but also their histories.

Like the Mostoller Wild Goose bean. The story goes that just after the American Civil War, veteran John Mostoller shot a goose and discovered the beans in its gullet. He planted them, and when they turned out to be a hardy variety, his family maintained them to this day.

“They know what they’re doing,” says Hubbs of the legume. “That bean chilled in a goose gullet for probably a good chunk of time and then got planted and still worked out and is still alive today, which is amazing.”

As Vicki’s business grew, seed saving fell by the wayside. That didn’t discourage Hubbs. On the contrary, she made the decision to turn her passion into a business and opened up shop as Edible Antiques.

“I started a business and turned my geeky hobby into my life, and now it’s insane. It’s amazing. It’s terrifying, but it’s equally scary as it is amazing and rewarding. It’s just like life in general,” says Hubbs. “It’s like growing things. Sometimes, things don’t work out, sometimes they do. Sometimes, the lettuce will be purple when you expect it to be green. But that’s life.”

Hubbs will be one of a panel of speakers at Seedy Saturday this coming Saturday in the Lipson Room, upstairs at Books & Company.

The free event, which has its origins in an event that began in Vancouver in 1990, is in its sixth year in the County. It’s held every February, just in time to plant the first seeds of the season indoors and in greenhouses.

It has grown since it began, and will feature workshops, panels and more vendors than ever before. There will be literature available and even a children’s corner. Most importantly, there will be a seed swap table where aspiring gardeners and seed savers can discover new varieties of vegetables, plants and flowers for free.

“It’s just a place where everybody can get together and learn and explore their gardeny passions and geek out together and have a great time. You can buy all sorts of different kinds of seeds. You can swap seeds,” says Hubbs. “It’s a free event so it’s one of those things where you can just go and you can leave with free food. You can leave with the ability to grow your own food after. It’s pretty neat.”

As visitors will learn, there are thousands—millions— of varieties of the fruits and vegetables we know, only a miniscule fraction of which end up in the produce aisle at the grocery store. Hubbs hopes that while heirloom plants have received attention as a trendy food, the general public will see the economic and ecological value of biodiversity.

“Growing food is a trendy thing right now. Buying heirlooms is a trendy thing,” says Hubbs. “But hopefully, it has staying power. It’s time people realized that’s the real future of food. That’s the only stable way that food can happen.”