Debut 149

Jack Deatherage

(6/2022) Every now and again the facade I struggle to keep in place slips and tears begin to well up in my eyes. I rediscover I'm not as much the knuckle-dragger I once was- capable of only expressing anger and rage, or cold indifference. I blame it on empathy Mom and the Sisters attempted to instill in me the few years I attended a Catholic school during the most impressionable ages of six to nine. Though the increased estrogen like displays are also likely related to andropause, senility, or decades of alcohol induced brain damage- possibly a mixing of the four?

Among the seeds in the "seed fridge" is a small packet containing forty peas. I've had the seeds for eleven years. According to "Seed to Seed" (the seed savers' bible) by Suzanne Ashworth, Pisum sativum seeds maintain 50% viability after three years- if stored properly. The seed packed is dated: 2004. Close to 98% of the seeds sprouted for me in March of 2022. The packet label also informs me the cultivar is from Sweden. There is a handwritten comment- '24" good fresh'. I recognize the penciled script. It ain't mine.

The woman what sent me the pea seeds eleven years ago isn't around to tell me anything else about the variety. I vaguely remember she'd requested them from the USDA seed bank for an experiment she planned to trial on her Minnesota homestead. She was a prime mover in the heirloom garden Yahoo group we belonged to and had sent me numerous seeds over the years Yahoo was the place to be. She probably wrote about 'Debut 149' on that group's message board and perhaps other group boards I didn't belong to. All that information went down the cyber memory hole years ago when Yahoo lost members to Fackebook.

I ran an online search for 'Debut 149' and came up with a USDA site and the Experimental Farm Network (EFN). Not having the smarts, or the credentials, needed to make use of the government site I wandered over to EFN and found this:

['Debut 149' is a very rare Swedish pea that stays sweet and tender even when seeds become oversized. It has a bush habit, but also benefits from staking. It's early and productive, and can even tolerate the full heat of summer for a while. We are very excited to be offering this seed for sale the first time in this country (at least as far as we can tell), and we're doing so in tribute to the woman who first introduced us to this fine pea and sent us our initial stock back in 2015: the late great Roxanne Joyce Reese Brown.

Roxanne was an artist, gardener, and seed saver from Foley, Minnesota. She was also a beloved wife, mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, and friend. She sold her art at a booth at the Minnesota Renaissance Fair for 25 years. Those who loved her all knew that she had the greenest thumb around — in addition to vegetables, she had an enviable gladiolus collection — and she was an excellent cook as well.

We learned the sad news of Roxanne's passing in 2017 when her kind and generous husband Viren Brown sent us a large package of her seeds along with a letter expressing gratitude for our sharing in Roxanne's passion for gardening. Included were more 'Debut 149' peas...

First, on March 17th, 2015, after I asked her about it (she'd included it in a list of seeds she had for trade): "It's a bush pea that benefits from staking. Good sized pods, good yield, no problems with mildew here in Minnesota. Very rare and you won't find information on it." Then, on July 2nd, 2015, she emailed me... this brief message: "Please add to your notes this pea is sweet and not starchy even when slightly overripe. It's a great pea for the home gardener." And on July 21, 2015: "It's been in the 80s here with a lot of rain. The plants are strong and healthy right up to seed production and no powdery mildew."...

We're truly honored to be releasing this pea in Roxanne's memory and on her behalf. We're sure she'd get a real kick out of this.]

Thus the tearing up. Not only did Roxanne share seeds with me, she helped me with my wine and mead making adventures, chided me when I got all bullheaded, urged the DW to slap me with a shoe when I was deemed needing such a correction. She gifted me a homemade skincare ointment, crafted from deer fat and herbs she grew on her homestead, when working with leather during the cold of winter caused my hands to crack and bleed. She also sent me homemade gardener's soap and some simple jewelry (including rosaries for my Catholic relatives she'd never meet).

Rooting through the seed fridge also turns up seeds gifted by another Yahoo gardening friend- Patty Forshey, who died in 2012. The seed packets are marked "La Pat" as that was how she ended her missives to those of us who belonged to her Heirloom Growers Garden group on Yahoo. Among the seeds La Pat sent me are some from a tomato she found growing in a "waste" area near where she lived in Florida. Of course she had to collect some of the fruits as they were worthy of saving if just because they'd survived so well in the wild. After growing them out for a few years she sent them to her "tomato experts" in the hopes someone could identify them. It was eventually determined that the cultivar was a wildling, probably generations removed from whatever cultivar some animal had dropped seeds of where La Pat eventually found it.

La Pat, being an artist (I have a painting she sent me of her pet orchid), named the tomato 'Raphael'. The seeds have languished in my fridge for more than a decade while I slowly got my gardening collective shi- umm... act together. If the seeds are no longer viable I hope someone among the 300+ members of La Pat's garden group is still maintaining the cultivar.

Brook Elliott, a writer for Mother Earth News as well as a member of the same Yahoo group La Pat, Roxanne and I were in, once asked why we were involved with heirloom seed saving. I was hoping to find the flavors I remembered from my grandfather's and Dad's gardens.

I've long since lost touch with Brook. Though I have managed to find a watermelon, a cantaloupe, a few tomatoes and some bean cultivars I suspect I ate as a child while seated at my Grandmother Cool's kitchen table. As important to me as those discoveries are, having stories of heirloom gardening people I've never met- never will meet -to add to the seeds I might someday share is every bit as satisfying as a bite of a well grown 'Crimson Sweet' watermelon or 'Pride of Wisconsin' cantaloupe.

Now, when nostalgia threatens to over lubricate me eyes I can blame the sudden dampness on my aching back and knees as I limp out of the garden carrying something tasty to eat.