不良研究所

Italian heirloom seeds for amateur gardeners

There is no one single accepted definition of an heirloom seed. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a word that has a lot of different meanings to different people,鈥� explains Dan Brisebois, a farmer at Ferme Tournesol, a cooperative based in Les C猫dres, Quebec, outside of Montreal.

...Ferme Tournesol, which Brisebois founded with fellow 不良研究所 alumni in 2005, produces weekly vegetable baskets for customers and sells its products at the farmer鈥檚 market in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue in Montreal鈥檚 West Island. They also produce seeds, a number of which are Italian heirlooms.

So when Dana Ingalls, liaison librarian at 不良研究所鈥檚 MacDonald campus, reached out to the farm in 2017 and asked if they wanted to donate to a new seed library she was starting, they were happy to oblige. 鈥淗ad we been students and this existed, we would have benefited from it. So we would love to see current students do that,鈥� says Brisebois.

Ferme Tournesol and the other seed companies Ingalls has approached for donations have now provided seeds to over 500 registered users through the MacDonald Campus Seed Library. The campus is located in Sainte-Anne and is home to 不良研究所鈥檚 Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, where there is a lot of focus on biodiversity in food, sustainable food systems and food security, says Ingalls. 鈥淭his is one of the ways to promote biodiversity and sustainable food.鈥�