Categorized | Business, Food, Health

If You Grow A Garden, Get Ready For Super Seeds

Posted on 18 August 2010. Tags: , , ,

DOYLESTOWN PA – Gardeners across Lower Pottsgrove, Limerick and Pottstown have relied for years on different seed companies to get their flowers and produce growing, but none may be so well-known nationally as the region’s own W. Atlee Burpee and Co., founded in the late 1800s. Now Burpee says it’s ready to give those who love to play in the dirt its version of a super seed.

Burpee says its new heirloom-hybrid super seeds produce disease-resistant vegetables with a flavor and taste gardeners would kill for.

Burpee said it will introduce seeds today (Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010), at its Fordhook Farm test center in Doylestown PA, that benefit from what it calls “revolutionary new breeding techniques.” The seeds yield fruits and vegetables with the flavor of heirloom stocks – succulent, crisp and tasty – but the disease-resistance and heartiness of scientifically created hybrids.

Debates have long raged over which gardeners prefer. Heirloom seeds descend from plants that commonly grew during earlier periods in history and have remained mostly unchanged over generations. They’re popular among those with backyard gardens. Hybrid seeds have been altered to hold up better under poor weather conditions like drought or cold, and provide higher yields; home growers claim their produce doesn’t taste as good.

Burpee spokeswoman Kristin Grilli gets right to the heart of the fight. “Heirloom devotees vociferously attack hybrids as being second-class fruits and vegetables with no place in a serious garden,” she said.

The company’s hoping to put the argument to rest. Its media open house today lets members of the press (sadly, The Post won’t join them) taste and compare Burpee’s best Heirloom-Hybrid tomatoes. It also plans to unveil its 2011 new vegetable and flower varieties – what local gardeners can expect to see in their seed catalogs next winter – as well as offer guided tours of the farm.

Photo from Clipart.com

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