Sowing seeds of the future; Kingston couple working toward sustainability

Jennifer Pritchett / Whig-Standard Staff Writer
Local News - Saturday, August 25, 2007 @ 00:00

Inside a sprawling Kingston property, two retired farmers are fervently protecting rare, endangered seeds to grow varieties of fruit and vegetables no longer available in grocery stores.

Robert Mouck and his wife, Carol, run the Heirloom Seed Sanctuary, one of the few of its kind in Canada. They sell hundreds of types of seeds they've harvested from gardens at the Sisters of Providence Motherhouse, a 30-acre estate at the corner of Princess Street and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard.

Some of their seeds are endangered: they're so old, they're practically impossible to find anywhere.

Today, the public will get a rare chance to taste some of the tomatoes the Moucks have grown from their rare seeds. Some of them are among the most unusual varieties of tomatoes on the planet, including a pale-yellow fuzzy tomato called Garden Peach, a purple one called Black Cherry and a small Yellow Pear, named for its shape and colour.

The annual Heirloom Tomato Day starts at 10 a.m. and runs until 4 p.m. It includes a tour of the gardens and a workshop on seed saving at 1 p.m.

"Basically, it's to get people to taste a tomato and then want to grow it and save seeds from it," said Carol Mouck. "We figured if they got that taste, they'd want to save that tomato forever."

The official definition of an heirloom tomato is an open-pollinated, nonhybrid, stabilized variety that's more than 50 years old and is distributed by individuals, not companies.

For many though, the distinguishing characteristic of an heirloom variety is its taste. Written descriptions of their flavours are as whimsical as descriptions used by wine writers about wine.

The Moucks have grown more than 100 varieties of tomatoes, 40 different types of potatoes and 75 varieties of beans, some of which have been around since the 1800s. They have one type of bean that has been grown since the 1500s.

They also grow cucumbers, leeks, lettuce, peas, swiss chard, eggplant, garlic, carrots, beets, spinach, celery, parsnip, watermelons, melons, squash, pumpkin, corn, wheat, radish, turnips, peppers, various herbs, flowers and other vegetables.