In small garden in Rice, taking pleasure in the seeds of the past

RICE, Minn. — History is growing at Johnson Heritage Farms.

Rows of tomatoes, beans and peppers are slowly ripening in Rice. Each tomato, bean and pepper is slightly different. Some have dents. Others are bigger. Colors range from deep reds to vibrant greens.

That's the beauty of them.

Julie Johnson manages the 150-acre farm, even though the garden only takes a portion of that.

Every piece of produce is grown from an heirloom seed. These seeds are not hybrids or genetically modified, and they were often passed along by generations of growers, the St. Cloud Times reported (http://on.sctimes.com/14lX2sk).

"It's seed (that) people have grown forever," Johnson said. "They are true seeds."

Johnson grows seeds naturally. The crops are open-air pollinated, and she does not use fertilizer.

The exchange hopes to secure a genetically diverse crop. Traditional crops are engineered to have the same taste, color and shape. Heirloom seed crops are all different.

"I like true seed," Johnson said. "I like biodiversity. I don't particularly care if it doesn't have the same color or shape. Every tomato has a different, unique flavor and its own shape."

Johnson also gets seeds from friends or acquaintances. She grows four kinds of beans, including a long pole bean called the Kratzke bean.

The bean seed was from the farm's soil vendor. He gave Johnson a snuff tin full of bean seeds. The family had farmed the crop when they lived generations ago in Germany.

Another friend gave Johnson red potato onion seeds. It's a hearty winter onion that was made into an onion soup.

Crops, such as the Kratzke bean and the red potato onion, are much like the seeds sowed by her grandmother years ago.

Johnson spent summers with her in the garden.

"She got me hooked," she said. "The fun of it grew into a passion and then it grew into an obsession."

Johnson Heritage Farms sells vegetables a few times at Sartell's Market Monday. She also has a small number of community-supported agriculture shares.

Heirloom seeds are part of a movement for locally grown and natural foods, Johnson said. The Seed Savers Exchange's 2013 yearbook offers almost 12,500 seed varieties. All seeds are from members.

Johnson credits a healthier diet to medical benefits too.

She says an organic diet helped her mother-in-law live with advanced lung cancer.

She said her family member was told she would live no longer than three months after her initial diagnosis.

Johnson's mother-in-law lived two years before dying in 2007.

"It was really the big change," Johnson said. "It was totally gutting her diet."

"I grow food like my grandma did," she said. "Food isn't perfect, and it doesn't have to be. It needs to be grown well and taste well."