The Heirloom Seed Project at Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum: Rooted in Heritage

Held annually on Mother’s Day weekend, Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum’s Herb & Garden Faire draws visitors from far and wide. The two-day event is an opportunity to buy rare and unique plants grown by the museum’s Heirloom Seed Project, as well as from outside vendors. This year is a source of pride at Landis Valley, as the museum is not only celebrating its 100th year, but also the 40th anniversary of the Heirloom Seed Project.

A Little History

Dating to around 1850, the Heirloom Seed building occupies a farmhouse at Landis Valley Museum that is among the oldest original structures on the site.

It’s because of brothers George and Henry Landis that Landis Valley Village & Farm Museum exists. Descendants of German settlers who made their way to Lancaster in the early 1700s, the brothers recognized the significance of their cultural heritage and began collecting Pennsylvania German objects from the 18th and 19th centuries, eventually amassing a collection that included more than 75,000 items. They displayed their finds in a small museum they launched on the family homestead in 1925. The state acquired the museum in 1953 and, as they say, the rest is history. It is now the museum’s mission to continue the work of the Landis brothers, as it strives to “collect, conserve, exhibit and interpret Pennsylvania German material culture and heritage” relating to the period 1750-1940.

The Seed Library Mission

Not so long ago, everyone leaned on horticulture to survive, growing plants for sustenance, animal feed and fabric. Landis Valley’s Heirloom Seed Project is part of the seed library tradition that exists worldwide, each established with a specialized mission.

Flax drying in a greenhouse. Flax seeds can be ground into flax meal for baking or cooking, while the fibers can be woven into fabric or rope.

One of the more famous seed libraries is maintained by the Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, which collects heirloom seeds and makes them available through its catalog. What started as an effort to preserve family seeds brought from Bavaria in 1870, then turned into a simple seed swap, eventually growing into a farm and print catalog for growing heirloom garden seeds. Other ventures include the USDA’s National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation at Colorado State University, whose roots date to the Organic Act of 1862. Yet another is the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, which serves as a backup for food crops lost in catastrophic global events such as natural disasters, war, accidents or mismanagement.

Deer fences installed around the garden protect library seeds and plants from loss due to grazing.

The Heirloom Seed Project at Landis Valley was founded in 1985 as an extension of the museum’s dedication to Pennsylvania German cultural heritage. Part of a living history museum’s purpose is showcasing the processes, tools and equipment that comprised the lifestyles and foodways of a time and place.

“What they didn’t have were the seeds that were grown,” recalls Ellyn Nolt, who manages the Heirloom Seed Project. “A call was put out to the public asking, ‘What seeds have you been passing down in your family for generations? Would you give us some?’” The collection had simple beginnings. “Initially, people adopted the seeds, grew them in their garden, and returned some of them to the seed project,” Ellyn explains.

Seed Money

Seeds are planted carefully in starter trays for the upcoming Herb & Garden Faire on Mother’s Day Weekend.

For reasons ranging from poor growing conditions to pest damage and seeds not being returned, the museum eventually lost several seed varieties. Vegetables are annuals, many of which need to be renewed each season to ensure seed viability.

Ultimately, they decided it would be more advantageous to grow seeds on-site for preservation purposes. Having the project on-site would also allow staff and volunteers to track seed viability.

That tradition continues. After each growing season, seeds are gathered, dried and maintained in the seed library. Because more seeds were being planted than could be used, the idea of selling excess plants was born.

That idea provided the inspiration for the annual Herb & Garden Faire. Months of seed preparations and timed planting culminate in 48 hours, during which plants are sold, providing “seed money” for the following year.

Each year’s batch of seeds is germination-tested before they are made available for sale in the museum’s gift shop, as well as online. Both are fully restocked around January 1.

While the museum is owned and partially operated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, the Heirloom Seed Project is part of the nonprofit Landis Valley Associates. Aside from funds generated by the Herb & Garden Faire, the program relies on donations and volunteer support. “We’ve tried to make strategic investments, like putting up the deer fence,” says Ellyn. “We invested in better-quality tomato cages, freeing up volunteer hours from the time needed to tie tomatoes,” she reports. Through the support of a donor, they were able to install a mist irrigation system in the hoop houses. Daily watering now only “takes half an hour as opposed to four hours,” she notes.

Farm and Garden Design

Working with Ellyn is Joe Schott, manager of Landis Valley’s Farm and Gardens. Landis Valley’s preservation program focuses on farms and gardens that correlate to specific eras. Each farm showcases lifestyles and crops accurate to specific time periods, highlighting the necessity, limitations and evolution of home farms and gardens across time.

Volunteers work alongside Ellyn Nolt in late winter to plant individual seeds in preparation for the annual Herb & Garden Faire. Left to right are Marjan DeKok, Ellyn Nolt, Alice Best, Wendy Good and Victoria Fisher.

Before the early European settlers arrived, Native American groups in South Central Pennsylvania, such as the Susquehannock, Conoy and Conestoga, cultivated crops known as the Three Sisters: corn, beans and squash. Grown together as companion plants on mounds of soil known as hillock, corn stalks provided trellises for beans to ascend while squash leaves covered the soil. The harvest of all three could be eaten fresh or dried for preservation. Such food was grown for “sustenance and gave the appropriate vitamins and minerals,” says Joe. “You weren’t cooking for taste and texture. They ate a lot of meat because that’s where they got nutrition.” Such a garden is on the wish list. “I’d love to add a Native American Three Sisters Garden here as an example,” Ellyn shares.

The Log Farm represents the 1750-1800s time period in which crops familiar to Europeans and adopted from Native Americans were grown. Produce would be eaten fresh, dried, pickled or overwintered in a root cellar. In the summer, melons and cucumbers grew, with beets, carrots, kohlrabi, parsnips and turnips comprising the root vegetables. Shoulder season crops included asparagus, cabbage, celery, chard, lettuce, peas, leeks and onions. Resulting heirloom seeds include the Risser Sickle Pea, which has grown in Pennsylvania since the Colonial era, while Amish Gnuttle Bean or the Corn Hill Bean is a Native American variety.

Springtime at Landis Valley Museum’s Log Cabin farm.

The Brick Garden represents 1800-1850, when seed catalogs made information and new varieties available. The Yellow Pear Tomato is recorded as early as the 16th century, though related to nightshade, tomatoes were initially grown ornamentally out of fear they were poisonous. Later in that era, home canning expanded the varieties of foods that could be preserved.

The next garden era has a deceptively simple name that represents a tremendous milestone in food production: Just for Pretty. “By the time you’re getting to the late 1800s, for the people living in this area, there had been enough innovations in terms of labor-saving devices and accessibility of inexpensive goods,” Ellyn notes. Over time, as clothing and seeds could be ordered through catalogs and foodways were better established, gardening could be enjoyed as a luxury.

Dr. Martin Lima Beans drying before the white beans are harvested for seed.

“They were no longer trying to grow all their clothes or food,” Ellyn continues. “Jobs that used to take a lot longer to do manually [were being replaced by] machines that could do the work. The lady of the house had time to grow a purely ornamental garden. When someone asked, ‘What is this garden for? Why doesn’t it have any vegetables?’ the answer was, ‘Well, it’s ‘just for pretty.’”

Winds of Change

The essential ingredients of our diets have and will always continue to change. The genetic diversity of plants is essential and functions as a safeguard against catastrophic disease, drought and climate change. For centuries, people have selected crops to suit their needs: foods with better taste and texture, offering higher yields, suited to climate and pest resistance. Which seeds are collected from a garden, even from the same plant, is a basic type of gene editing. Continually selecting larger seeds, or those from produce that ripened earliest in the season, is a method of choosing traits. In those instances, repeatedly collecting choice seeds annually will yield larger or earlier seeds.

PA Red German Lima Beans drying in the pod.

Nature is constantly making choices, too. Stronger plants are more likely to survive and have their seeds reproduce. Pollination is another ball of wax. If you’ve ever planted yellow cherry tomato seeds and ended up with red cherry tomatoes instead, it’s not a mix up. Previously in those seeds’ lineage, a pollinator or breeze carried pollen from a red tomato flower to that of the yellow tomato. The red tomato genes expressed and were more dominant than the yellow tomato genes.

Dried Dr. Martin Lima Beans cleaned and sorted for packaging.

Seed developers intentionally cross varieties for unique traits, from creating elaborate roses to growing the ultimate hot peppers. After enough generations pass, hybrid seeds will eventually revert, as the dominant set of parent genes will replace weaker genes. Those hybridization processes must be repeated and are often patented, but that’s another conversation.

At Landis Valley, Linore flax and Dr. Martin Lima Beans are two staple varieties. Flax seeds are ground for flax meal or pressed for linseed oil, while fibers can be woven into fabric or rope.

Stored in glass jars, seeds are kept in a hutch donated by volunteer Wendy Good. Dried seeds are best preserved in a cool, dry climate.

As for the limas, they have a story behind them. “Dr. Martin was a dentist in Philadelphia in the early 1900s,” says Ellyn. An avid botanist, Dr. Martin grew white lima beans in southern Chester County. “He bred a variety of lima beans that grew large but stayed very tender. They didn’t get mealy. It has this almost cult-like following among people in northern Delaware, southern Pennsylvania, and northern Maryland, who would have known about them,” she says. Harvested when small and still green, they’re tender and creamy when boiled and served with brown butter. Alternatively, after drying, the lima beans need time to soak and soften in water before being boiled. They’re excellent in baked bean recipes, soups, stews or with ham hock.

Seed Collecting Tips

Heirloom seeds are available for sale at Landis Valley Museum’s gift shop. Seeds can also be purchased online, with both sources restocking annually in early January.

Pick mature vegetables and tomatoes to obtain the best seeds. “We let lima seeds on until they’re dry in the pods,” says Ellyn. “The peak of freshness is not the same as the peak of seed viability,” adds Joe. When collecting tomatoes for seeds, “Pick them up off the ground,” he says.