Conundrum over plant, food label terminology solved

Let’s get a few terms straight before we start to solve the conundrum of plant and food labels.

First, organic is how something is grown.

It indicates that the plant/food/animal was grown/raised without the use of chemicals. Many of these chemicals that farmers and home gardeners use, find their way into the streams and rivers and eventually into plants that bees forage on, thereby getting into things like honey. Not cool. I like my honey (I’m not talking about my hubby here, but I DO like him, too). I’m talking about that sweet sticky stuff that beekeepers collect — steal — borrow — harvest, from beehives.

I guess there’s no way to make that sound nice, is there. They make it, we eat it. It’s good for so many things: allergies for one, and helped heal some bad burns on my honey’s leg (now I AM talking about my hubby — not trying to confuse you). This wound healing property is amazing and doesn’t need the dangerous chemicals to complicate things.

Organic (insert anything here) just means that the farm that produced it didn’t use any of those chemicals and the higher price is usually because a larger percentage of his/ her crop was lost due to insects and wasn’t good enough to sell. Those farms that grow organically put a LOT of extra effort into making sure you get a healthier, chemical free product. If you’re shopping for seeds, likely there won’t be any difference to you if one package is labeled organic or not. Genetically, the seeds are the same. If you’re operating on principle, then pay a few cents more and support the organic farmer.

Secondly, heirloom is an important term to understand.

In terms of seeds, these seeds are genetically the same as their great, great, great, great grandparent seed was. Oh the stories those seeds could tell. They were carried across the oceans, across the plains, carefully planted and tended to with great hopes and lots of prayers in a new home. The pioneers planted them and many are still grown in gardens across the world. They are frequently more flavorful and nutritious but often are hard to store, ship, transport and sell in big box stores. That’s the down side to our current system.

Food is grown for mass production, long term storage, gas ripening and maximum shelf life. It’s not about flavor and nutrition. For a home gardener, if you choose heirloom varieties and you know how to harvest the seeds, you can keep growing the same plant year after year. It’ll look the same, taste the same and sometimes have the same genetic benefits or problems of the parent plant. You’ll likely find these at Farmers’ Markets for sale.

Hybrids are the genetic cross of two plants.

For example, when two apples cross their DNA you end up with a new kind of apple, which, by the way can be worth millions of dollars, so don’t turn your nose up at what Mother Nature does. It’s made some people very rich. When done in a lab where the DNA is altered in a way that’s not natural, this is called GMO. GMO anything carries its own set of issues which I won’t even attempt to summarize here. If you save the seeds from a hybrid plant, it will revert back to one or the other parent. You can’t even possess the seeds of GMO crops without a license which is totally different discussion. Hybrids often have some unique benefit of fewer seeds, different coloration, disease resistance or special flavor. You just can’t save their seeds. Saving seeds of GMO foods is illegal. Again, sheesh.

So, if you want to support the organic farmers, buy Organic.

If you want to have a garden where you buy the seeds once, buy Heirloom.

If you want something different than what you can normally find, a hybrid would be a fun choice. Conundrum solved.

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Editor’s note: Mechel Wall is owner and operator of both The Cottage Flower Shop and Wallflower Farm. She can be contacted at blooms@wallflowerfarm.net.