Having given pickacarrot.com a brief Nibble, I feel duty bound to report at greater length on the new online exchange of Seed Savers Exchange. The arrival of the SSE Yearbook, with its hundreds of pages of densely printed listings, heralds, for many, a winter of wondering, speculating, dreaming and, occasionally, frustration. It lists all the varieties offered by members of SSE, from whom you request seed directly. If you are after lots of different seeds, from lots of different members, that means lots of different requests.
The online exchange, while probably not as comfortable to curl up with in front of a fire (I haven’t tried it on a tablet computer) is equally enticing and a lot easier to use. At least, I think it is. In the old days, you actually had to write to someone asking for seed, and if you were doing so from outside the US, as I was, you had to find International Reply Coupons and all that stuff. The online exchange has a wishlist to which you can add your requests, so to test it I thought I’d look for Cherokee Purple, a tomato I’ve grown successfully in the past and that might amuse my Italian neighbours.
I found it easily enough, and then had to choose a member to ask for it. I decided on Neil Lockhart, in Illinois, for no good reason. Then I pressed the button to complete my order, and nothing happened. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to pay the $3 handling fee (plus, I hope, a little more to account for additional postage to me), or what happens next. Perhaps that’s because the online exchange is still in beta test. Perhaps nothing is supposed to happen. Of course, had I read all the details in advance, I would have learned that the online exchange is actually just streamlining the process of requesting seeds, by sending an automatic email from me to Neil. Now it is up to us mutually to sort out delivery and payment. It also streamlines the whole business of listing seeds members may have to offer, which is probably going to be very helpful too.
All in all, SSE’s online exchange has, I think, enormous potential. One of the most interesting and diverting aspects is the Seed Stories, which give a glimpse into the personal histories behind some of the varieties, and to which SSE is adding all the time. The online exchange has some glitches still to be ironed out, and I’m sure they will be. There might even be ways in which it could be improved but that would take inordinate amounts of human time. For now, though, especially if you are in the US, it seems like a wonderful gateway to a wealth of agricultural biodiversity.
Of course, you do have to be a member of SSE, but that’s no bad thing.