Heirlooms aren't the only awesome alternatives to hybrids, cybrids, or GMOs.

We get a lot of folks asking if our seeds are heirlooms. Rightly so. Heirlooms are usually delicious--relics from an era when we selected varieties for flavor, not necessarily yield, uniformity, or the ability to travel long distances. They're also sometimes in danger of being lost. For these reasons, heirlooms are great choices.

Heirlooms are simply older varieties of "open-pollinated" (OP) seeds. Open-pollinated seeds will breed true to type. In other words, as long as you've properly isolated them, you can save and replant the seeds from OP varieties and get plants that look and taste like their parents. And while we want to preserve heirloom varieties, we also want to support the breeding of new varieties that are well-adapted to the conditions of today. Seed savers have for millennia been selecting/breeding new varieties in response to specific needs or changes in environment, culture, etc. We want to ensure this important work continues.

All of our Snake River Seed Co-op seeds are open-pollinated. We have lots of beloved heirlooms in our collection. We also have lots of newer OP varieties, some of which will become the "heirlooms of tomorrow".