The Plowboy Interview Kent Whealy

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I've often considered limiting access to the members' listings . . . and allowing nonmembers to participate in the exchange only through the Growers' Network. But I'm afraid that doing so would discourage too many people from joining at all . . . and that just doesn't seem the way it ought to be. At the same time, of course, I want to protect my members as much as I possibly can . . . so I've been thinking of establishing a cut-off—in June or July—for all requests, in order to reduce the total number of seeds that are distributed each year.

PLOWBOY: There's evidence around your house of several related projects. Can you tell us about them?

WHEALY: Right now I'm using an Apple II microcomputer to assemble an inventory of all the vegetable varieties that are still commercially available. I've already compiled a directory of nearly every seed company in the United States and Canada . . . and I'm about one-quarter through an inventory of all the varieties they carry. The catalog—which I hope to update each year—will be by vegetable variety name and will include a complete description of each variety, plus a list of all its known sources.

This inventory—once it's completed—will show clearly the varieties that are "endangered". . . which, by my private definition, means that they're offered by fewer than, say, three companies. I think it'll prove to be an invaluable resource for anyone who's interested in preserving disappearing vegetables. Many gardeners make a habit of trying to buy up seed for their favorite crops if they think the cultivars are about to be dropped, but sometimes such individuals find out too late that a particular variety is doomed . . . and then they don't know where to turn. My inventory covers about 150 seed suppliers in North America, so it will provide complete alternative access to those scarce varieties . . . as well as an "early warning system" to help people buy stocks of seed while it's still available.

I've been working on a new indexing system for the yearbook, too. All the earlier editions of the publication have had the members' names organized according to state, which forced the person to read through the whole book to locate the sources of a particular vegetable. I hope the next yearbook will look a little different. I'm going to index it by vegetable variety . . . with each category containing the names of members who are offering and seeking that specific kind of seed, so those people will be able to find each other immediately. I'd also like to construct some kind of "future" source directory, which would catalog people who may be keeping rare varieties but don't yet have enough seed to share.

Finally, I plan to list all period gardens in the country that are maintained by living history clubs, outdoor museums, botanical gardens, or state horticultural societies. I've already been contacted by the directors of many such projects, because they often find it difficult to locate authentic seed for the historical plots. Through a period garden directory, we could help keep such groups supplied with varieties of the correct time period or ethnic origin . . . and they, in turn, could grow out the vegetables and send seed back to the exchange, for our members.

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