A Gift of Seeds
Passing the (seed) torch.
By Sara Friedl-Putnam
“Martin had the same passion for heirloom seeds as I did,” replies Kim Lund, Exchange lister, when asked about Martin Longseth, her longtime friend and fellow Exchange enthusiast. “It’s really rare to find someone so passionate about what some would think was such a trivial thing.”
But to Martin, a Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, resident who died in November 2021, seed saving was far from trivial. It was, instead, a lifelong passion. In January 2018, he told Jennifer Fetterly, a writer for the Sun Prairie Star, that as a toddler, he would wander the rows of his mother’s vegetable garden “digging in the dirt and picking weeds.”
Later in life, he became an avid seed saver, stewarding a collection of thousands of varieties, devoting untold hours to help save the “Wisconsin 55′ tomato from extinction, and developing the Paquebot Roma’ tomato. Martin also offered nearly 1,000 varieties (mostly tomatoes) on the Exchange from 2007-20 And in Kim, who also fondly recalls spending time in the family garden as a child, he found a true kindred spirit. The two avid seed savers met through online seed-saving and gardening forums.
“I talked to him for close to 20 years online,” recalls Kim, a resident of Sheridan, Michigan. “He was an inspiration to me because he was so passionate about the importance of saving seeds of heirloom varieties.” For years, Martin and Kim shared seeds through seed swaps, and Kim also bought seeds from him during that time.
“After the last order I placed, Martin told me that it would probably be his final one due to several health issues and that he was not sure how long it would take him to get them to me,” she says. More correspondence ensued, and Kim ultimately offered to “keep (his varieties] going.” Not long after that, she began to receive boxes filled with seeds-many tomatoes and some beans, all neatly packed and labeled. Says Kim, “He sent me the collection that he was sharing with the world.”
And now that is her mission as well. “One of the stipulations of my taking over stewardship of Martin’s seeds was that I keep them listed with Seed Savers Exchange,” she says. “He talked me through listing about 1,000 varieties of tomatoes.” She completed that task in between co-founding the Michigan Seed Library Network and helping start (with fellow Exchange lister, Samantha Dukes) a community seed library at the White Pine District Library, where a story garden and a vegetable garden in honor of Martin are also in the works.
Kim’s efforts to save and share seeds may seem tireless, but her inspiration runs deep. “Once we plant that last seed and do not save from that plant, those seeds are gone,” she says. “I want to keep all of these varieties going because they are a big part of history, and it is important to save history if we can.” And with that Martin would, no doubt, agree.
