In 2004, while working towards my Ph.D. in Botany at the University of Connecticut, I participated in an expedition to northwestern Australia. The primary purpose of that trip was to collect specimens of about 20 different wild Australian eggplant relatives with which to explore their evolutionary history using DNA sequence analysis. The trip was successful in that regard but also led to my team describing a new species from Kakadu National Park in The Northern Territory.

The species, which we named Solanum sejunctum in 2006, was thought to be the latest example of an unusual trend we'd recognized in Australian eggplants: a tendency for individual plants to either be male or female. This is relatively uncommon in plants, though there are some well-known examples such as hollies and Cannabis.

The problem was that we couldn't say much about how this species reproduced without conducting pollination experiments, and we hadn't been able to collect any seeds on the trip from which to grow an experimental population!

Fast forward to summer, 2009 (with me now a biology professor at SUNY Plattsburgh). I went back again, this time with a new team and a primary goal being to collect fruits (and thus seeds) of Solanum sejunctum, then use them to grow the species in cultivation for the first time ever. This time we struck gold – after about 10 days in the Bush (sleeping in tents, fending off mozzies, and covered in red dust) – and collected multiple fruits as a part of our pressed herbarium collections. These were shipped back to Plattsburgh, where a student and I picked out the seeds one-by-one from dried fruits weeks later, placing them gingerly in carefully-labeled coin envelopes.

A second student led the germination effort. It took a while, but he and I finally were able to germinate a number of seeds of Solanum sejunctum and thus establish the only non-wild population of this species in the world.

After thousands of miles of travel; weeks of outback camping, hiking and collecting; hours of picking and sowing; and five years of anticipation, there they were: tiny seedlings poking up from the soil. It was glorious. Of course, now we need the plants (there are about 30 of them) to flower so we can do our crossing experiments, and maybe some bee-feeding observations, and whatever else comes to mind. Everything we learn about this species will be a new observation. And it'll be because, finally, we got the seeds!

Okay, you're wondering: Can we eat it? Probably not. Most of the Australian wild eggplants, though they are thought to be closely related to the aubergine, are not edible to humans, although a few have been used by Aboriginal populations for "bush tucker" for thousands of years.

When unpacking from vacation last summer, I came across a small zip-lock bag of seed pods and dried flowers tucked into a pocket in my suitcase. Looking a little closer, I could see that the seed pods were some sort of legume, and the dried flowers were related to asters. I had apparently collected them during some previous trip, but [alas] have no memory of doing so.

Collecting seeds or plant parts while out and about (probably hiking) is not something I do commonly, so there must have been something about the plants that produced them that caught my eye. (What was it? And where was it? How annoying that I can't remember!) Since I haven't done much hiking recently, the seeds were most likely sitting in my bag for five years at least, possibly as long as eight years. Thinking about trips I've taken with that suitcase where I might have come across interesting plants, I can narrow the geography to a few places: Appalachian Mountains of WV or VA, central FL, or southwestern TX. In what "hikable" environment in any of these locations would legumes and asters be growing together? I can't imagine.

The dried flowers were faded and nondescript enough that I had little chance of identifying them, but the seed pods were really quite distinct: about three inches long, light tan, slightly curved, and containing 3-4 black beans that had a bright white hilum (see photo; for everyone other than the plant nerds among us, this is the part where the seed was attached to the pod during development). Despite this distinct appearance, I've not managed to come up with anything that's even a close match to this [sigh].

So, fast forward to this spring. After starting all my garden seedlings, I thought, "What the heck, let's plant a few of these mystery seeds, too." Given the length of time they'd been languishing in my suitcase, I had low expectations. But, much to my surprise, the beans started emerging within five days! Within 10 days, I had 100% germination from the 10 or so seeds I started--from seeds that were that old, and had been stored that poorly! Remarkable.

Sadly, the asters did not germinate at all, so they may forever remain a mystery. But I transplanted the beans into several garden spots (full sun and part shade) and am avidly observing the plants that develop (see photo). They are growing rapidly! So far, I can see that the mid-rib and veins are dark purple, and the plants want to climb. I think they will turn out to be perennials rather than annuals, meaning that I won't see them flower this year. This means that it may be a few years before I really figure out what they are and, hopefully, thus figure out where I must have collected them. But in the meantime, my magic beans capture my imagination, as I try hard to hear the story they have to tell.

Karen Larson | Pittsburgh, PA

I am an art teacher at a private school in Pittsburgh, St. Edmund's Academy. In learning about the World Seed Vault in Norway, I was inspired to teach my students about this important place through art. Students made their own clay seeds, hollowed them out and glazed them and fired them. They then inserted a piece of paper with their own "seed," or wish, written on the paper, and closed the ceramic seeds. Some even used yarn to tie their seeds closed.

They also made a design for the steel door we had seen in pictures of the seed vault. The real door is plain, and we decided if in the future anyone came upon the door, a picture would be worth a thousand words of what could be inside.

I sent the information to the World Seed Vault organization. They liked it so much, they asked for one sample for their Rome headquarters. It was also written up with Scholastic Arts magazine in March 2010, in their online site. The world seed vault is so important since it houses millions of food seeds from around the world. In case of disaster, disease, wars, or drought, the seeds are kept safe until needed.

Pat Abramson | Merit, TX

When my gardener friend Sharon gave me these, she said, "Toss these where nothing else will grow!" Here in the Dallas area, we have very hot summers.

Of course, spinach won't tolerate our heat, so we can't grow it after June. Which is why every time I harvested some of these greens in the broiling heat of summer, I'd e-mail Sharon, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Malabar spinach is a beautiful, vining spinach, and the rubra type has tinges of red. Mine grows to eight feet high and eight feet wide.

It produces beautiful clusters that will drop many seeds, so you want to plant it away from the garden, because you will always have it. It will grow as a ground cover, too. It's not a true spinach; the leaves are a bit more succulent. But I love it sautéed with garlic with a bit of soy sauce or oyster sauce. Mine overwintered one year in a container with a little trellis. I have sold this seed to out-of-state seed companies.

Cecilia Nasti | Buda, TX

These are artichoke blooms in my garden in Texas, taken on June 10, 2010. I'd already harvested what I wanted, and let the rest go to bloom.

I'm an organic vegetable gardener on my mother's side, and whenever possible, I grow Italian heirloom varieties. I always plant tomatoes and basil and garlic, because those flavors connect me to my southern Italian roots (by way of the Chicago area).

Peppers, squash, artichokes, and eggplant also have a home in my garden, as well as other edibles. I grow this food to not only feed myself and share with friends (or cook for friends from the garden), but also to stay close to the pulse of the earth, to keep from getting too far out of touch with the seasons (in Texas we only have two of those -- brown and green).

Gardening literally keeps me grounded. Sadly, we had some mighty storms in Texas in the last month, and they have wreaked havoc on my poor crops. But the beauty of a garden is the rejuvenation. And it's time to start planting for fall.

Perry Silverz | Ann Arbor, MI

In 1984, I was working in a used textbook warehouse, and found a packet of unopened tomato seeds. "Yellow Jubilee," said the package, with a bright orange-yellow fruit on the front. The "packed for" date was 1975. The odd juxtaposition of a seed packet in a dusty American history textbook was so amusing, I hung onto it.

The following spring, on a lark, I tried germinating some of the seeds and, surprisingly, they sprouted! They produced tasty, firm 7- to 10-ounce fruits, so I saved some of the seeds. I have been growing these tomatoes ever since. They are among my most reliable producers in the garden.

I've been growing only heirloom tomatoes for the past 10 years or so, and though some produce a greater weight of fruit per plant, and others are more dramatic looking, the Yellow Jubilees faithfully give me late season fruit that are as satisfying to eat (and can) as their story is fun to tell.

Tanja Browne | Honolulu, HI

I'm convinced seeds know when children plant them, and they make an extra effort to grow for them. Most of the time when I plant seeds, nothing happens and I feel let down, or I blame it on the wrong planting day according to my lunar Hawaiian planting calendar. But seeds seem to know when they're planted by the hand of a child, who plants the seed -- whether recklessly or attentively -- full of innocent and complete conviction that he will see something happen to that seed in a few days. It must be the conviction I lack. Or the recklessness. Either way, if a seed likes a child's pat of the earth over them, they must love to grow once they've been sucked dry and slathered with a child's magic saliva.

My youngest son, who loves every fruit grown on earth, would suck delightedly on any kind of seed, spit it out, and tell me to "plant it right now!" So plant them we did. Somewhere in the back of my mind I thought they had to be dried first, but that rule never seemed to apply when my toddler tossed them into the ground.

"Look!" He’d point excitedly at the first sign of life out of a lychee seed that had filled his protruding right cheek not days before. I always looked, incredulous.

Not all the seeds made it. A stubborn peach seed keeps reappearing every time I toil around in the garden, even five years later. The apple seeds never made an appearance -- it was too much to hope for in our climate. But the organic orange tree came up, and we have a healthy, five-year-old date palm. Even a pineapple crown that he once used as a soccer ball was finally allowed to rest in a quiet part of the yard, and is really hanging on.

Why aren't my seeds growing? Where are the elusive leeks and green onions I keep planting? Not rocket science, these are easy things to grow, but apparently not by my hand! My older son, who isn't the least bit interested in gardening, planted a mango seed minutes after sucking it dry, and the thing grew so quickly and so well, I had to transplant it out of my raised bed garden within two weeks – a bad idea, since once it sensed my adulthood, it now refuses to grow in its new spot in the ground. It also refuses to die, and I have to look at it everyday and be reminded of the green thumb I don't have...at least, not in the magic shade of green that children do.

John Gale | Palo Alto, CA

Last summer, I tried growing several varieties of heirloom tomatoes from seed. We live in Palo Alto; summers don't really get all that hot, except for a few days, and I didn't have a heating pad. The seeds never sprouted, and in frustration I tossed them into our compost a few months later. In the meantime, though, I kept looking with despair at the empty plot of soil in our tiny back yard, wishing fervently that the tomato seeds would sprout and I could move them to their lovely, patiently dedicated spot.

A few weeks before giving up on the seeds, I gave in and bought some cherry tomato starts from a local nursery. Being a relatively new tomato parent, I watered and watered keeping the plants happily growing and rather leggy. Only after stories of dry-farming and how tomatoes burst if they get waterlogged did my girlfriend convince me to stop watering. But, by then it was too late; they reached over our heads (yet producing superbly sweet fruits), and after a month-long fall vacation, we arrived home to a full-grown tomato monster crawling through a neighbor's bougainvillea, over the fence, ten feet tall.

We vowed to cement our resolve to trimming next year's tomato bushes, and in the spring cleaned up the yard to redo the soil with fresh compost and build some raised beds. Tearing out the tomatoes meant whatever fruit remained fell on the ground; hundreds upon hundreds of small or large, orange or green cherry tomatoes. Great soil material, we thought! We turned over the decaying fruits with new compost and built up our beds, planted lettuce and chard and carrots and beans, and so began spring. Once again, I tried growing heirloom tomatoes from seed.

I left space, hopefully waiting, between the lettuce and chard and carrots and beans for these new seedlings. With a new cold frame I took more care of the seeds; a week later, they sprouted! The rest of the vegetables also sprouted; our back garden was looking to create a bountiful year. While weeding the garden, we noticed a foreign visitor. Some sprouted weeds we were familiar with and easily pulled out. But one type of sprout we didn't recognize. Two long, slender leaves. Some had already started secondary leaves, fragmented but lush. They looked like... tomatoes? Six months on, now, the second generation of cherry tomato monsters have almost surpassed our climbing beans.

We have vowed to trim them this year, but as our resolve to thinning them did not turn out so well, I'm not entirely hopeful. Stone-hearted we removed the poor seedlings from the second half of the garden where the lettuce and chard lay; they lucked out to escape the tomato monster's wrath (merely to be eaten deliciously on our dinner table). To the bean's chagrin I have already stopped watering that garden, but by now the tomato's roots are so deep that they likely tap into the neighbor’s irrigation. The successful heirloom seedlings were relegated to large pots on the patio, but are still growing well; as Garrison Keillor jokes with squash, this year we will likely shower our friends with unwelcome amounts of tomatoes. Hopefully in the next month one resolve will deem fruitful: I resolve to learn how to jar and can tomatoes...

Barbara Murphy | Huntsville, AL

I teach environmental education at a Title I, inner city middle school. Through grant money, we were able to have our first school garden.

Most of my students have no or little idea about where food comes from. In March, we planted radish and sunflower seeds in the classroom, later moving them to the outdoor garden when the weather warmed up.

My students were moved and amazed at the growth process of their plants, and I had a difficult time keeping them on their regular class schedule. All they wanted to do was work in the garden. Eventually, we planted cabbages, pole beans, tomatoes, squash, watermelon and peppers. It was a wonderful, hands-on, learning experience for them.

Richard Mason | Redondo Beach, CA

When I was a young boy, maybe seven decades ago, I would share a piece of toast spread with avocado with my dad.

Sometimes, rather than tossing the seed into the trash, he would take a seed, spear it with three toothpicks, and balance the toothpicks over a glass filled with water.

In a week or so, the seed would begin to split and a miracle would occur. From that seed, a tree would start its life in that glass, sitting on the window sill.

After all these years, I can still transport myself to that kitchen sharing times with my father.

Barry Scanlan | Milaca, MN

When I was on Easter Island, circumventing the island on horseback with a Mapuche shaman and others, I noticed that some of the local Rapa Nui cowboys were tearing leaves off wild tobacco plants and smoking them.

The tobacco was in seed at the time (March in the southern hemisphere), so I collected a tiny amount of seed in my film case. Upon returning to Minnesota, I planted the seeds in my garden and got beautiful yellow tobacco flowers.

In the fall, when they went to seed, I sent seeds to J.L. Hudson, Seedsman, with an explanation. J.L. Hudson is a seed saver catalog.

They planted the seeds and now sell the tobacco as Nicotiana Rapa Nui ($2.00 per packet), crediting me with this seed source. I do not smoke. I just like plants, especially interesting ones like this one. I have grown the tobacco each year since my trip to Easter Island.

Celt Schira | Bellingham, WA

I'm just sitting here by Bellingham Bay, breeding those beets.

The garden provides most of the fresh vegetables for my household, particularly fall through early spring. I raise heirloom tomatoes and cool season food crops: beets, lettuce, kale, chard, winter radishes, bok choy, etc.

I've been saving seed and selecting vegetables for 10 years. I used to be the crazy woman with beets blooming in my repurposed front lawn (a 10-foot-wide strip, formerly occupied by sorry looking grass).

Now it turns out that I was just ahead of the curve. I have a postage-stamp-sized city lot, and it is full of raised beds.

I lost count, but it's planted with over 100 different vegetables, herbs and flowers. I've been teaching urban gardening and seed saving for a couple of years. The interest keeps growing.

Susan Herrmann Loomis | On Rue Tatin | Louviers, France

I love all seeds, but I believe my current favorites are Nigella seeds.

They produce the most poetic flower I know, which we call "Love in the Mist." Clear blue or pristine white, the flowers hang in a web of tendrils that look like mist.

The seed pods are translucent green and shaped like an Algerian lamp, rather elongated and with ribs. Once they've dried, the seeds inside are jet black, tiny and, if you bite down on them, filled with a pungent flavor that enhances East Indian curries.

I grow them for the flowers because my climate doesn't really encourage the seeds to have huge flavor.

But I'm happy to know they are there, and they fall to the ground and reseed themselves so that now, my garden is filled with them. What could be better than a garden filled with Love in the Mist?

Bill Wheaton | Decatur, GA

Cleaning up the yard for the year, I neglected a portion near the water spigot -- for two years straight. By the time I was cleaning up the yard the third year, that spot was so full of some sort of good looking grain, that I just let it go. Perhaps the birds or chipmunks would like to nibble on it. Maybe it was barley and I could use it in my next batch of brew. I snipped a piece, Googled it, and found out that it most resembled durum wheat. It was the healthiest thing I've grown in a while.

A week before midsummer, I thought it would be interesting to get some of the grain, and crush it in the mortar and pestle to make flour. To my surprise, it was harder than I thought. My brother suggested an electric coffee grinder, an idea that was backed up by my wife's reading of the Little House books when she was young. So I spent a Saturday afternoon harvesting the trashcan lid-sized patch with a pair of scissors.

I broke the grains off onto a plate and winnowed them as I heard my father tell me in Bible stories as a child. And sure enough, I got about three platefuls of durum wheat grain. Grinding it in the coffee grinder did quite the trick, and I was able to get about two and a half cups of whole grain flour from it. My wife Susan baked that into a quick bread we took with us to friends for our midsummer celebration. It was enjoyed by all, especially since the flour was made from scratch from my front lawn.

We have no idea where the seed grain came from. We think it was probably from the bird feeder we use for the feathered and furry beasts. We kept some back though, and we will likely do a second planting before end of summer. If it goes well, we may even start growing our own grains for the beer we like to brew. We live in a neighborhood where the neighbors are actually digging up their front yards to grow vegetable gardens. I don’t think they would mind a wheat field!

Edythe Preet | Van Nuys, CA

I am a lazy gardener. Culpa mea, it's true. In years past I have diligently prepped, planted and patiently pampered ordered rows and clumpings of kitchen garden basics and exotics. And every year some of the previous season's sowings have gifted me with volunteer offspring. Such serendipitous botanical cooperation was a revelation! It all started with the arugula, that salad green an appetite for which can gouge a huge hole in one's culinary budget.

The first year I planted arugula, I accidentally let some go to seed and -- voila! -- a few months later, new plants sprang up in more or less the same spots revealing that this tasty herb has the personality of a weed. Marvelous! A similar situation occurred with shiso. I tried planting this exotic from seed, and nothing grew. So I purchased one pricey, puny plant from a specialty garden center. The following year, dozens of hardy shiso babies popped up in close proximity to their original site. So did the cherry tomatoes, catnip, fennel, leeks, zinnias, four o'clocks, asters, Asclepias, potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, nasturtiums, and spearmint.

Since most of my produce is purchased at farmer's markets and available gardening time has been cut to zero thanks to ramped up work requirements, this year I have let my garden go volunteer -- exclusively. While the result has been a riotous hodgepodge of plants where I never intended them to be, nonetheless it's pleasing to the eye, and more importantly, minimum to zero work for yours truly. All hail the seeds that plant themselves! Who knew gardening could be so easy?! And a bon marche to boot.

Elaine Hunter | Berea, KY

Hold on to your chef's hats. I'm about to introduce you to a use for seeds that just might boggle your mind. It is called su jok seed therapy. "Su jok" is Korean for "hand foot." It was dreamed up by Jae Woo Park.

I can vouch for its efficacy. I was first introduced to it in Sri Lanka, in a clinic I go to from time to time, to teach and to learn -- and introduced just in time. My hotel bed was miserable ("Oh my aching back!") but there was no room suitable for me to move to. I'm a born experimentalist, so I gave su jok a try. Just a few nights of su jok seed therapy took care of the problem. Su jok involves taping various seeds to "points of correspondence" in the su jok system on one's hands and feet. The person who told me about it said mung beans are neutral, so good to use in my case, and when other seeds are not available.

The supplies I needed, paper tape and mung beans, were available close by. I taped them on at night because who wants to go around with seeds taped to their hands all day? At the time, I didn't want to spend time for some other therapy. But su jok is a wonderful resource these days when the economy of self-care is increasingly appreciated. The way it works is that the life force, Qi, imparts the healing with the piezoelectric effect of the pressure of the seeds on the points where energy is blocked stimulating the flow of electrons.

That the Creator intends for us to be well is evidenced by the myriad of healing ways inspired in the minds, hearts and hands of His/Her creations. I recommend searching online for more information if you're interested in this simple, revolutionary healing method. The book titled "Su Jok Seed Therapy" is not easy to find in the United States.

Charlyn Ellis | Corvallis, OR

We are almost at the end of the Spring Tomato Saga. All I have left are 11 plants, sitting in one clearly labeled tray. A few years ago, in the rush to clear out the tomatoes, we accidentally gave away the plants meant for us. I was left with just five Stupices and a couple Sungolds, and had to buy plants! Since then, I have labeled clearly.

The journey each year begins at Candlemas, when we plant six-packs of all of the tomato varieties, two seeds per slot. Given the ease of tomato seed germination, that means 10 to 14 plants of all seven types. And yes, we do need seven varieties of tomatoes. How could anyone give up the little golden, sweet Sungolds warm off the vine? Or the complexity of the Green Grapes on a September afternoon? The large, firm slices of a Black Prince? The color values of a Lemon Plum mixed into the dried tomatoes for winter? The delicate foliage of a Silvery Fir Tree? The Long-keeper, which gives you a tasty tomato on the Winter Solstice? And you always need some canners -- long Romas that come ripe just when school starts. So, I plant them all, knowing that there will be far more plants than we need. Then we distribute the surplus -- one of the first principles of permaculture design.

Once planted, the flats come to school and sit under the light on my counter. They thrive. Once or twice someone has messed with one or two plants, but usually they are left alone, if not encouraged. One year, I found a tiny origami crane tucked in with the plants as I carried them home. Entire classes check on them regularly. Someone is always amazed that the plants smell like a tomato!

By Spring Break, they are ready for re-potting. Suddenly, one innocent tray of tomato seedlings burgeons into 80-90 small plants -- four large trays to move in and out. At that point, I send out the call: Get them out of the living room. Until we give all the plants away, I haul plants out in the morning, sometimes to the bench in front of the door, sometimes to the mobile greenhouse known as The Ark, and back in for sudden hailstorms and darkness. Every afternoon, I deal in tomato plants, describing their loveliness, giving hints about planting and care, pushing them out into the world. Some people take a dozen; some just one or two. I have repeat customers; I set requested plants aside for pick-up at Hot Cross Buns. This year, when just a handful of Romas were left, I called a "clean-up squad" -- a friend who plants a huge garden every year -- to come and haul them away.

We were left with the one small tray labeled, "OUR PLANTS," to move in and out on warm days. Soon, they will be popped into their wooden barrels along the south side of the house, ready for summer.

Bonnie Parsons | Taylorsville, KY

First an answer to Ms. Schumann in Durham, North Carolina, with the mystery seed pod found in her suitcase: Your plant is one of my favorites, as it grows so easily and blooms from midsummer through fall. The climbing hyacinth has a flower much like a sweetpea, as well as nice burgundy pods. I harvest the dried pods to plant the seed in large pots next to a trellis, as they must climb. I doubt they are perennials.

My first seeds came from a wonderful, thoughtful person in Marion County, Kentucky, near the Ham Days Festival 12 years ago. Their fence was covered by this beautiful vine and flowers. They had packed and labeled the seeds in used prescription medicine containers to graciously give out to passersby like me.

Next a question: Can anyone share how to get seeds to grow from my perennial tall garden phlox? I have to dig and transplant, but would like to plant the seeds which, on a quiet day, can be heard snapping to pop from their small brown cases. My previous attempts have not germinated.

Shelley Midura | New Orleans, LA

Approximately seven years ago, I completely redid my front yard to add a limestone driveway and new landscaping. Two years later, Hurricane Katrina hit, and I lost two huge, beautiful pine trees that bordered the driveway down to the street. Ever since then, I have had a hard time getting anything to grow in the place where they were, because of the large amount of sun that area receives and because it is not outfitted with a sprinkler system, so it is very dry and hot. Over the years, I have tried to instill in my children an appreciation for landscaping and natural beauty -- something that they have come to appreciate much more in our post-Katrina world, where each house that gets rebuilt and landscaped makes the city looks so much better.

Our street has several vacant lots where houses once stood, and a few new homes. We monitor the state of the lawns and gardens on a daily basis. In thinking about this hot, dry spot in my yard, and wanting to engage my kids in the solution, I bought a bunch of different varieties of sunflower seeds, and asked my 10-year-old daughter, Sophie, to plant them. She diligently did, digging up several rows of dirt to fill in with all of the seeds. We are now enjoying the fruits of her labor, because those seeds have sprouted into beautiful sunflowers that we jokingly say we could cut and sell at Whole Foods because of how perfectly beautiful they now are. Because I chose a bunch of different varieties, some of them are eight feet high, some are a foot tall, some are about five feet high. And the colors range from deep yellow to lemony yellow to reddish yellow.

People who drive by the house have commented on how pretty they are. This dry, hot spot that used to make me feel depressed about the loss of my two very tall and old pine trees to the winds of Katrina has turned into a bright spot full of beauty that my neighbors, children and their friends notice. This experience has caused me to consider planting other types of seeds -- like herbs or vegetables or both -- in this part of my yard.

Gary Woods | Duanesburg, NY

I'm a Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) member, particularly obsessed with garlic. I grow a number of vegetable seeds, such as the Greenpeace kale pictured. But this story is about the Macomber rutabaga.

A friend gave me a couple of turnips she'd bought from a local farm, saying they were the best she'd ever eaten, and I agreed. The farm called them an heirloom "Macomber turnip," but I could find no such thing in the dangerously high pile of seed catalogs I possess. Eventually, I discovered my quarry was a rutabaga, frequently sold as a turnip. And I got some seed from a Seed Saver's Exchange member in 2004.

They did well on my soil, consisting of equal parts of rock, clay, and epoxy, so I put a dozen in the root cellar to plant out the next spring to flower and set seed. They stored well, and produced an abundance of seed, and a bonus the following year of thousands of volunteers, which we ate as greens all summer. I've since spotted Macomber at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, where they claim that farmer Macomber who discovered the variety lived in Westfield, Massachusetts, just west of Sturbridge. Just this July, I heard my old friend mentioned at the Seed Saver's campout convention as one of the best heirloom rutabagas. I wholeheartedly agree!

(I save seeds from beets, kale, rutabagas, leeks, and others, as well as growing a number of garlic varieties. See my spreadsheets here. Photo is of Greenpeace kale in bloom that I grew from seeds.)

Theresa Rosado | Lansing, MI

Many growing regions in Michigan have changed from a zone 5 to a zone 6. Never in my entire life have I ever seen a zone change. And though I know that a zone change indicates our yearly temperature lows and highs as well as last frost dates have changed, adapting to a new planting season is trial and error at best.

One thing for certain, our summers are drier and hotter. And that means more water. If you water from a rain barrel, that means hooking up two rain barrels instead of one. I am considering a grey water system -- when you live in the city and have to pay for your water, every little bit you save counts.

And seeds? Which tomato plant is going to do the best in this hotter, drier environment? I am conducting a top secret experiment this year in my garden. Two tomatos, side by side, pollinated by hand. Two tomatos (I'm not going to say which varieties) to form what I hope is that perfect tomato for our new climate zone. I am saving the biggest, most well-formed tomato from each vine. And instead of eating it seeds and all, I'll scoop the seeds into a bowl of water for a week or so, dry them on a paper towel, then carefully label them for next year’s growing season. Will the cross pollination take effect? Will I have a tomato that loves the heat and less water? I will not know till next year.

Carl Tackett | Smyrna, GA

A friend from Uruguay gave me some seeds of zapallitos redondo, a South American summer squash, which is zucchini green and round like a softball.

They are firmer and more like squash than zucchini, and are better than either squash or zucchini to my wife and me.

I have grown them for the last three years. They are prolific like zucchini, but do not get too large too fast.

My wife makes a delicious olive oil crust galette with them that is outstanding.

Rick Borchelt | College Park, MD

(Pictured right: Albert and Meta Hengst, wedding portrait circa 1918)

They were always in a wooden box under the bed, in folded church offering envelopes or twists of butcher paper. Wood, because otherwise the mice with which we shared a house would eat the seeds that meant next year's garden. Oakleaf lettuce and black-seeded Simpson; a patty pan squash that tinted green instead of white; Cushaws and Blue Hubbards. A dozen kinds of beans -- Kentucky Wonder and yellow wax and calico among them. Gourds to make the dippers that hung on the cistern handle, and that festooned a tall pole in the yard to attract purple martins. And Grandad's weak spot: melons -- watermelons and cantaloupes; honeydew; Persian; and a lime green one his father had brought from Germany when they emigrated; rattlesnake and Dixie and the new-fangled Sugar Baby, seeds of which he'd filched at the county fair but, being hybrid, they didn't turn out as expected.

Shoepeg corn and popcorn we had in such quantity they commanded their own coffee cans on the top shelf of the cabinet. In the cold dreary days of February, when the Ozarks are ravaged with ice storms and snow and sometimes even the spring in the springhouse skimmed over with ice, Grandma would drag the box out and sort through the seeds, going over and over in her mind how the garden would be laid out come spring (although in reality it never changed -- corn at the bottom with pole beans growing up it and winter squash rambling among the rows; potatoes and sweet potatoes next, offspring of whichever tubers hadn't rotted in the root cellar by spring; then tomatoes that Grandma started early in egg cartons on the kitchen window sill among the African violets). Out in the attic of the old house -- the cabin that had been my grandparents' first home together, and now functioned as smokehouse and meat locker combined during the winter -- the rafters were hung with many more: turnip and radish and mustard seeds, rattling husks of okra. They were the resilient ones that didn't need coddling in the house over winter.

Every family in our community had its own private store of seeds; while a handful of seed catalogs arrived each January, none of us had much spare money to send off for new seeds every year, or to make the trip into town to Sunny Hill Feed and Seed Store for fresh seeds. If disaster struck -- and it could come from anywhere, mold starting in seeds that hadn't been properly dried, an ambitious rat that managed to gnaw a hole in the box, forgetting to bring the seeds into the warm core of the house on the cold days when all but the kitchen and front room were shut off to conserve heat -- the neighbors would each dip into their store of seeds and share a few of each kind. Pooled together, they would give a family enough to make it through the next season and give to the next family whose seeds were lost.

I can see Grandma going through the seeds now when one of our neighbors' house burned, tipping out a scant pinch of lettuce or a row or two of beans into new envelopes and carefully writing on the front of each what they contained: "Poll Beans," "Wax Beans," "Shell Pease," "White Hikory Corn." But while the box contained the seeds that would put food on our table, season the pork and beef and chicken we would butcher, and fill the rows and rows of jars of canned vegetables in the corner of the basement, I sometimes think these seeds weren't the ones that Grandma would thumb through, and touch, and finally hold in her hand while she closed her eyes and tried to picture warmth and summer.

At the back of the box of vegetable and herb seeds were just a few envelopes that weren't food or feed. These were the seeds of the flowers from her grandmother's grandmother's gardens in Germany -- sky blue and pale pink larkspurs, scarlet corn poppies with shiny black centers, bachelor buttons, snow-on-the-mountain and cocks-comb, kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate. And while planting the garden in the spring was a family affair, from the tilling to the hoeing to the raking and stretching the strings taut between stakes in the ground to get the rows straight, the flower seeds she would plant by herself at the end of the day, in the cool dusk, in beds she prepared on her own and that only she tended. They were her heritage, and her reward for the hot days in the summer kitchen over steaming kettles sterilizing canning jars, or weeding in the heat of the midsummer so the weeds would die on the spot when they were pulled, for picking the green caterpillars one by one from the cabbage and the cauliflower.

The farm was sold a decade or more ago; it's now a subdivision in process with a lake where the spring used to be. The barn, the old house, and even our home are gone to rubble; the cistern long since caved in. Where the garden used to be is a tangle of blackberries and a few struggling asparagus clumps. But when I visited in July last year, here and there among the ivy and the fescue and the Johnson grass where the corn used to be were spires of blue and pink, larkspurs still struggling to carry on as they had for generations in Europe and in America. I pulled a few ripe seeds pods from the oldest plants, tore a few sheets from my notebook, and laid the seeds down the middle of each sheet before twisting it like butcher paper into a container for the seeds and carried them back with me on the plane. When I got home, they went into the plastic shoe box with all my other seeds.

This winter, in the depths of the East Coast Snowpocalypse, I would sometimes take down the shoebox and leaf through the seeds, dreaming of summer. I always ended up on the larkspurs, and they were the first things to go into the ground when the thaw came in March. They're blooming now, and when each spire of blue or pink starts to open, I think of the wooden box under the bed, and the rafters hung with seeds, and think as my grandmother must have thought that seeds are about more than pots on the stove filled with vegetables, or shelves in the basement crowded with canned goods.

Elana (Lonnie) Sussman | Ann Arbor, MI

My father, AZ Cutler, age almost 86, has had a garden most of his adult life. In addition to the backyard and the sides of my parents' house, he has a plot in a community garden.

Many years ago, a volunteer tomato plant showed up. It was a darn good tomato: red, sweet tomato flavor, not too big, not too small. My father saved the seeds and grew it the next year.

Other gardeners liked the tomato, and soon he was sharing the seeds and the baby plants. We have our own plot at another community garden, and the AZC tomatoes are a big hit.

We also share the seeds, give away plants and enjoy eating this tomato that always makes me feel very connected to my dad. Long live the AZC tomato!

Juliet Jones | Memphis, TN

At the Midsouth Fair in Memphis three or four years ago, in the Horticultural Exhibit, someone was displaying some loofahs, and there was a jar of black seeds with a sign saying, "Help yourself."

So I took a few. The following year I planted them in little pots and read all about them on the Internet. Loofahs are originally from India (I am from England; loofahs don't grow in England, so obviously I had no clue). They like to grow on a fence, like a vine, and in fact, they climbed over my fence and into my neighbor's yard. Kathryn was very nice about it, and didn't cut them down.

So, what can one do with loofahs? Two things: eat them (when small) and turn them into scratchy sponges (when big). I did both. The sponges are a little too scratchy for my English skin, but make great environmentally friendly pot scrubbers! And the babies are quite nice sautéed -- though not as nice as baby ornamental gourds, which I have cooked in the same way.

(Pictured: a loofah plant starting to grow up a magnolia tree -- note gourd and flower)

Shaun Warkentin | Elkhart, IN

It's past midsummer in Indiana. The corn tassels bob in the wind, swell and sway like an ocean, like the seas of switchgrass, big bluestem, and Indian grass one might have seen here long ago. Might have seen. More likely, one would have confronted an ocean of darkness -- shadows flecked with mischievous beams of sunlight somehow sliding through the blockade of maple and beech canopy above. Bloodroot. Trillium. Horehound.

No more. Now it’s Mon 810. S08-A2.* Oceans of it. And yet, I take heart. One might pessimistically argue that my homeland and many others have been overrun by the seeds of plants that no longer evolve, but are engineered. This monovalent view of life misreads the complexity and all-pervasiveness of evolution, of the necessary flux of organized systems. True, we plant the same varieties of disease- and chemical-resistant species in our fields every year. True, we have actively and forcibly altered the genotypes of commodity crops to suit our agronomic needs. True, we have debased and dismembered our native ecosystems to support an edifice of subsidies, enforced scarcities, and industrially efficient food production. True, it appears that we have reached a point of horrific stability in regard to all of these matters of fact. But it is also true that the apparent stability of this situation belies undercurrents of radical movement and recalibration. Life finds a way.

Consider the effects of the short-term efficiency of herbicide resistant crops. The dawning of the reign of the superweed is now at hand, made strong from generations of subjection to unrelenting herbicide regimes -- the weeds themselves expressing and spreading their own inherent resistance. Life finds a way. Consider the continued realization and awakening of people to the development of local food economies. To eating fruits and vegetables again. To gardening. Seeds are being grown and even a few are being saved. People all over the world are noticing and reacting to the state of the health of their bodies and their communities. Life finds a way.

Consider that perhaps, instead of the commonly held and grossly anthropocentric view that we have utilized corn and other grain crops to our own ends, perhaps they instead have parasitized us. Perhaps they have encouraged us to become sessile agriculturalists. Perhaps they have provided us with the impetus to clear the forests and turn in the prairies in order to provide them with vast expanses of favorable habitat. Perhaps they have engineered humanity and our economies in such a way as to bring about the strengthening of their genotype against the onslaught of natural competitors and predators. Life finds a way.

Poet Gary Snyder provides us with some wisdom: "Wilderness may temporarily dwindle, but wildness won't go away. A ghost wilderness hovers over the entire planet: the millions of tiny seeds of the original vegetation are hiding in the mud on the foot of an arctic tern, in the dry desert sands, or in the wind, . . . always preserving the germ." As much as we attempt to control, mold, fashion, sow, and reap, life, in its deepest and most profound nature, must always find a way.

* corn and soybean varieties from Monsanto and Northrup King/Syngenta

Photo of an American chestnut hybrid, a variety resistant to chestnut blight that destroyed over 3.5 billion trees. Planted to help repopulate the United States with the iconic species that once covered over 200 million acres from Canada to Mexico.

Ana Maria Cuenca | San Francisco, CA

I laughed heartily when I heard that "Splendid Table" story about the "seed smugglers," people who bring seeds into the United States, in clear violation of agricultural laws. I must admit that, although I know how bad this is, I have done that many times when I have traveled overseas and have found a particular plant fascinating. My most memorable "smuggle" were the seeds of the massala tree from Mozambique. I had spent a memorable three months working in Mozambique, and got hooked on the fruit of this tree, which the locals also call “massala,” and which looks like a grapefruit with a very tough peel.

The fruit is brown inside, has large round seeds that look like fat pennies, and tastes like bubble gum! I was intrigued by this fruit, and since I had seen the trees grow on beaches in very sandy soil, I decided to bring the seeds back to the United States and give them to my mother so that she would plant them in the sandy soil of her south Florida home.

My mom planted the seeds and had a funny experience with them. She planted them in a pot in her garden, and every day when she went out to water the garden, she noticed that the seeds were uncovered even though she had put a thin layer of soil on top of them. Thinking that she had some sort of curious squirrel or raccoon at work, she would cover the seeds back up again with soil, only to find them uncovered the next day when she walked by them again.

After several episodes of this nature, she began noticing that the seeds would literally turn themselves flat and were growing roots on the flat side of the seed that faced the ground. This is why the seeds moved. When she planted them, she didn’t lay them flat, and every time she covered them back up again with soil, she would disturb their position. So they had to keep moving back to their flat position in order to grow roots. Eventually, she grew a beautiful, tiny tree with tiny, triangular leaves. Today, I'm happy to report that the massala tree is thriving in my mom's backyard, but I will probably never eat massalas from it in my life time. It seems to grow about one inch every year. Nevertheless, it has been one of my most successful seed smuggles!

Susan Tait | Aloha, OR

About 10 years ago, I replaced a beautiful but ordinary calla lily in the corner of my front yard with a spindly plant with a lot of promise.

Tree peonies are slow-growing grafts onto herbaceous peonies, and for a few weeks every spring, my yard catches people's attention from over a block away when my tree peony explodes with color and scent unlike anything else.

And then the show is over, until the fall. For all the praise that Chinese poets have heaped upon the peony, which originated there, neither the ancient poets nor the modern masters praise enough the seedhead, which swells like a fat bean, until the seeds within split the pods and lie in the light like black pearls.

Cheryl Hart | Titusville, FL

I spent the summer days of my youth on my grandparents' five-acre farm in Florida. In addition to a couple hundred citrus trees and an acre of vegetable rows, my grandma had all manner of flowers growing willy-nilly about the grounds.

When I was about nine or so, our fourth grade class studied Gregor Mendel (the father of the study of genetics) and his pea crossing experiments. This lesson planted a seed in me that sprouted one endless summer day as I wandered out of the backyard to stand before a patch of four o'clocks -- wonderful, trumpet-shaped flowers, in white, yellow, and a deep, hot pink. The pistils and stamens were so in-your-face obvious that I was reminded of old Gregor and the challenges he had with pollinating peas. Then and there, I decided to cross-pollinate all of the flower colors in the hopes that I might get some interesting blends.

Determined to pollinate as many as possible, I spent an hour or so in a pollinating frenzy. I would return to that flower patch several more times that summer, quietly crossing the white to the pink, the yellow to the red, and even the yellow to the white over and over and over again. In the years that followed, I proudly watched the patch produce many splotchy, splattered trumpets, I was sure, from my crosses: white base with yellow streaks, white with a pie-wedge of pink, pink with yellow flecks, half pink-half white, and on and on. The combinations seemed endless from just a few starting colors.

A year later, I took over my mother's collection of flowers and potted outdoor plants. A year after that, older ladies from the neighborhood made a point of stopping by on their evening walks to admire "the prettiest plants in the neighborhood." About 10 years later, I graduated from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in ornamental horticulture. This is the fruit, I think, from a seed planted during a brief lesson on a friar with a pea patch.

Britt Zimmerman | Brooklyn, FL

Last summer, I filled my sizable balcony in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with loads of kitchen garden plants, such as herbs, tomatoes, squash, Swiss chard, and so forth. I had carefully selected these plants from the Seed Savers Exchange catalog, which incidentally, I had the habit of leafing through while listening to the "Splendid Table" on the weekends.

While making my cucumber species selection, I came across an unusual cucumber variety called the "Mexican Sour Gherkin." I recalled seeing it once before at the Michigan State University Children's Garden the previous summer, and decided to order a packet of seeds just for the heck of it.

This plant is fantastic. It is a cute little vine (mine got up to only about 2.5 feet on its trellis) with small, cucumber-ish leaves, and is somewhat fuzzy looking. But the best part is the charming little fruits it makes. After making a little yellow flower (also charming), it develops these watermelon-look-alike cucumbers that are roughly grape sized.

I have heard the Mexican Sour Gherkin described as tasting already pickled, and indeed it is a very crunchy, little tidbit with a rather tart flavor. I don't personally enjoy eating them myself, but it was great fun having friends over to try them. I will definitely grow this vine again for the curiosity factor, as well as for its other appealing features!

Amy Tyndall | Brookline, MO

Last summer, when we were still living at our old house, my two-year-old daughter and I planted some pumpkin seeds. Since we didn't have much room, I ordered a variety that was small and grew on small plants. It was fun watching the big pumpkin blossoms grow, the tiny green pumpkins emerge, and the round, orange pumpkins ripen. But there was one problem: worms. The pumpkins were gross, and I wasn't about to consume them. Into the compost bin they went. Such is the fate of a laissez faire gardener like me.

Fast forward to this summer. We are living in our new house, which is sadly void of any garden yet. Our old house has not sold, and we go back there occasionally to check on it. My husband told me after one visit that there was some kind of squash growing. He said it looked like a giant cucumber. I went back a few weeks later and discovered elongated, bumpy pumpkins that looked ripe. They were growing in the bed where I had dumped the last of my compost before moving the compost bin to the new house. I'm guessing the pumpkins I planted last year were a hybrid, and that is why the seeds (from the compost) did not produce the same fruit.

We cut the ugly pumpkins off the vine and brought them home. I was excited that we had so much free orange vegetable for my beta-carotene loving son. However, I was a bit nervous about cutting into them, because there were a few worm holes. I didn't need to worry. They were hard as a rock. My knife couldn't begin to cut through. Wow, those worms must have sharp teeth.

The pumpkins sat in our sun room for about a week. This evening I noticed more worm holes on the pumpkins. I asked my husband if he would like to practice his pitching skills by throwing them into the wooded area just outside our house. He was happy to oblige. Maybe some deer or groundhogs can find a way to eat them. For future gardens, I would love to grow heirloom vegetables, whose seeds always produce the same kind of fruit from which they came. A great local place (Baker's Creek seeds) I have yet to visit is a seed savers' mecca. Maybe they even sell worm-free pumpkin seeds.

(This story is also published on my blog, amysgarden.com).

Elaine Scott | Charlotte, NC

Eight years ago, I decided to save seeds from cherry tomatoes I purchased every summer from a local farmer. I'm told he received the seeds from a friend, who brought them back from Argentina.

After my first bountiful year, the plant reseeded itself in the same location each year. Five years ago we moved, but I brought some seeds with us. I tossed them into the yard in the fall, and crossed my fingers that the tomatoes would move with us. They did not fail me.

This cherry tomato is the hardiest plant I grow. I never water (it survived a month-long drought), bugs don't bother the plant (it can grow in the same location every year), and it re-seeds itself throughout the yard (with a little help from our dog, who eats the tomatoes). I now kick off summer with a simple pasta dish of roasted cherry tomatoes, garlic and basil.

Elizabeth Churchill | Los Alamos, NM

Last night, a melon made me cry in front of my husband. This emotionally manipulative melon is a diminutive thing -- a "Tigger" melon (Cucumis melo). Not believing the description in the catalog could be based on fact, I bought a pack because my husband seemed entranced by the glossy image and fervent description. I was right there with him. I've visited many different temples, but exploring catalogs under the winter TV-glow of "Futurama" was closer to a religious experience than any other I'd had. Research in those deep nights caused me to fret over giving each chosen variety a chance at growing up strong and bearing its best fruit.

Outside, the winter stars above our heads were unmatched. I imagined each point of light spinning with the dark sky above as a single seed sprouting in the dark underground of my coming sunny gardens. Talk about faith, hope, and love! So, we began to plant the morning I felt sure we would avoid further frosts in our little farm valley. It was more a feeling than fact: the angle the sunrise stroked our prepared beds, the speed the molecules lifted into the air from the green alfalfa below, my impatience. So many seeds had been chosen -- so many things we'd never tried planting (or even eaten!) before. They all went into the dark for us.

The tiny, pale seeds of the Tigger melons from Baker Creek Heirlooms won membership as one of the mythical Three Sisters in the Zuni waffle field we carved into our front yard. I blessed (and occasionally cursed) each seed as it fell into the starry night of our horse compost-enriched sand. We waited. Being in New Mexico, we also watered and weeded. We'd never bet a seed supply on a dryland farming technique before, so I wavered in my confidence from total to zero. We watched the sun and clouds, picked bugs by hand, repositioned soaker hoses, put up trellises, added more horse compost, and mourned the wonderful steaming hailstorms.

My husband would tell you I became a little nuts ("Hello, Pot. Kettle here!"). I guarded against bearing excessive hope for produce by speaking aloud the likelihood of total crop failure. I'd never had a garden in the desert before, never tried a garden this big, never planted this thing before, had no clue how to control greedy, crawling things. My husband laughed at me with that sweet grin of his that means, "You're a loon, but you're going to be OK." For a long time I felt faith slipping away as the weeds poking out of the compost our horses gave us were much more assertive and vibrant than my more cultivated followers. But then everything took off.

The two kittens patrolled for snakes and scorpions. Our folks called us for garden updates. I imagined us to be the loving gods of Eden before people were planted there. Tiggers happen to be far cuter than their name indicates. Far more compelling than the glossy devotional described. Ours grew up smallish, with a fresh-sweet aroma and vibrant, orange-striped, yellow skin; they look like the centers of solar systems vining in four dimensions throughout our Zuni Universe. The first three-inch orb had been turning from baby-green to sunshine far ahead of her sisters, and last night when I touched her on the vine she fell into my embrace effortlessly, presenting me her pungent prettiness.

I was shocked when this happened. In unexpected ecstasy, I cradled her in both hands and clumsily escaped her universe through the vines, corn stalks and bean tendrils toward my husband exclaiming, "Honey, your Tigger is ripe! Smell her! Look at her!" I don't think he noticed that I was crying as this happened. Strike that. I bet he noticed, and he knew in his sweet, wise way to simply take her from my hands, greet her amidst the laughter, and inhale.

(Pictured: Kittens, Purr-Bots Major and Minor, patrolling the Zuni waffle field.)