NEW FOR 2009: FARM-ORIGINALS, HEIRLOOMS, AND COMMERCIAL STANDARDS
These are our New Additions for 2009, and as always they include our latest on-farm breeding refinements, and some good proven varieties that organic growers have found reliable and adaptive.
We have chosen not to seek PVP or other intellectual property protection for our original varieties. We have studied, argued, consulted, and meditated on the relative virtues and hazards of IP protection in the food sector of life. We've tried recently to contrive some variation on the use of Creative Commons 'Copyleft' or Open Source Software models to provide open forum use of crop genetics, without fear that corporate entities will Patent what others have freely offered.
This turns out to be extremely complicated, completely untested in the courts, and fraught with real world differences between creative intellect, software code, and new seeds for food crops.
To begin with, seeds are alive, and the rest is not.
Regardless, these new crop cultivars, their genetics, and the traits they express are freely offered to the Public Domain, and they are not intended for any kind of privatization or ownership by others, though others may use them in their breeding, farming, or garden-related enterprises.
Wild Garden Seed appreciates recognition for its breeding work by those who use it.
Australian Yellow Leaf Lettuce
An unusually glossy-bright yellow-green leafed lettuce from down under, with a reputation for summer endurance. We like the shiny new color for the salad palette and the vigorous growth--but the name may be a challenge for sales...See 'Brown Golding' for another example of a great lettuce with a challenging name for marketing.
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Stocky Red Roaster Pepper
 This is our Red Italian with refinement--selected for smooth uncrumpled straight sides, smooth skin, thicker walls, and bright red color. Fruits are 6-7" long, 2½" broad at the crown, sweet, heavy fruiting, and long keeping.
Farm Original Variety!
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Red-Earred Butterheart Lettuce
Sounds like an embarrassed suitor in springtime, but here's a new selection from the RRDT tribe, with dark red pointed leaves that are shorter, broader, and way more buttery and folded than 'Really Red Deer Tongue.' Limited Supply.
Farm Original Variety!
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Concept Lettuce
Striking visual appeal in pure crisp green. A cross between crispleaf and romaine types, creating an open whorled effect in the full head, and a very juicy crunchy romainesque flavor. Slow bolting.
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Strawberry Blonde Calendula
We have been trying to stabilize this beauty for several years, but she's been a hard one to settle down. Dark red "flash backsides" with pink and pastel yellow petals facing out with a dark central eye.
Farm Original Variety!
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Mescher Butterhead Lettuce
An heirloom of distinction, dated to the 1700's in Austria. A fast-hearting spring type, green with red-tinged leaves, and small very dense heads with perfect butter flavor. Sent to us last year as remnant seed from a Canadian prairie seed saver.
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Vidid Choi Mix Mustard
A hardy mix for cold season salad, green and purple leaves, with stems and veins ranging from vivid pink to deep purple to white. Semi-blanched inner leaves are striking additions to the greens of winter. Overwintered plants bolt into "vivid rapini" from mid-February through March, splendid welcome produce during the "hungry gap" of winter's end. We sow this in mid-September.
Farm Original Variety!
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Santo Cilantro
One of the fastest growing but slowest-to-bolt types for main-season cilantro crops.
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Bellesque Endive
Named for Bellingham, WA, the town where my friend John Navazio was living as he selected this full sized frilly endive for cold hardiness. Makes large full-hearted heads from plantings in mid-July thru August. Spring sowings are best for early cut salad mix.
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Merlox Red Oak Lettuce
This is the first release of our newest tribe of lettuce innovation. "The Merlox variations" have all been created using 'Merlot' as a parent in combination with other (larger, more flavorful) lettuces. This first offering combines 'Emerald Oak' with 'Merlot' for a new extreme in dark red compact oakleaf, with wavy margins and very strong horizontal resistance to downy mildew and sclerotinia. The original crosses for this variety began in the 2003 Lettuce Disease Trials at GTF, funded by Organic Farming Research Foundation. A Free Seed Introduction.
Farm Original Variety!
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Chartreuse Butter Tongue Lettuce
Everyone agrees this is one unusual lettuce, with bright golden-green pointed leaves wrapping a big butterhead in a showy whorl. Good results for us from earliest spring sowing, and for the Philomath High Botany Class from August plantings. Third largest heads among 20 contenders in autumn trials.
Farm Original Variety!
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Philosopher's Lettuce Mix
A strictly Romaine melange of perfect forms, pointy headed off-beats, serious Reds, and wannabe flash. Outredgeous, Plato, Olga, Really Red Deer Tongue, and Flashy Romainesque get together to convey most of the original ideas ideas about being Cos. A cutting salad concept worth speaking out about.
Farm Original Variety!
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