Gardening

Salute to a Hunger Hero

One of the many food pantries in Shelby County has a sign outside that reads, “Hunger Heroes work here.” Those volunteers certainly are heroes.

Let me introduce you to a different kind of hunger hero, one whose passion is teaching folks how to grow their own food, save their own seeds, get moving and out of doors, buy locally grown, and, in the process, preserve their culture.

His name is Bill Best, and he lives in Berea.

A native of the mountains of North Carolina, Best has farmed most of his life in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. A former professor, coach and administrator at Berea College, he is one of the founders of the Lexington Farmers Market. When that market opened in 1973, he was the youngest member. At 86, he still attends the market and is its oldest member. He also founded the farmers market in Berea.

Best brings beans and tomatoes to market—but not just any beans and tomatoes. These beans come with the rich heritage of the Appalachian region and the folks who grew them for generations and saved the seeds for next year’s harvest. The tomatoes are not just the round red ones that we’re used to. His heirlooms come in pink, purple, black, green, yellow and striped, and range in size from huge lunkers to tiny “Tommy toes.”

In his lifetime, Best has saved—often from extinction— dozens of bean and tomato varieties that are Kentucky and/or Appalachian heirlooms.

Kentucky Heirloom Seeds Best has written 10 books on gardening, farming and seed saving. A seed saver myself, my eye was caught by his Kentucky Heirloom Seeds, published five years ago by University Press of Kentucky. The book was co-written by farmer and fiber artist Dobree Adams of Frankfort. It combines lessons in history with tributes to individual seed savers in Kentucky, including the indigenous peoples of the region who were saving seeds long before Europeans arrived in the mountains. In the book’s foreword,

Dr. A. Gwynn Henderson

writes that, despite the myth that Kentucky was merely a “dark and bloody ground” where Native Americans came only to hunt and fight, those peoples had been practicing agriculture and saving seeds for more than 3,000 years before white settlers arrived. Many of Top, seed-saving hunger hero Bill Best; above, Best’s 2017 book and his award for sustainable agriculture that was named in his honor. the bean varieties Best has saved can trace their origins back to indigenous people. The rest of the book is a tribute to the heirloom bean and tomato varieties and the mountain people who grow them and have saved their seeds over generations, even when saving seeds went out of fashion or became unnecessary. Beans were grown by almost everyone in the mountains and have dozens of descriptive names—cut-short beans, greasy beans (missing the fine hairs on the pod), cornfield beans, shuck beans, shelly beans, leather britches, butter beans and more. Most of those were pole beans and grew up corn stalks, pole teepees and strings. Beans and corn

Photos courtesy UK Agricultural Communications Services

Berea Seed Swap

Looking for heirloom seeds? The Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Seed Swap event will be held on Saturday, Oct. 1, at the Acton Folk Center in Berea from 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

are a natural pair; the corn provides the “pole,” and the beans feed the corn additional nitrogen. Add squash at the foot of the hills, and you get the “Three Sisters” of Native American plantings.

Best writes that we lost flavor and nutrition when we started harvesting beans and tomatoes by machine and breeding varieties for shipping quality and shelf life. The green beans that we eat canned, fresh or frozen are husks only, Best writes, while the heirlooms have the beans developed inside, and that’s why they are richer in protein.

Even those who lack taste buds know that storebought tomatoes leave a lot to be desired when it comes to flavor. That’s because they were bred for shipping, uniformity of shape, and shelf life, not flavor. Heirloom tomatoes, by contrast, typically have thinner skins but are more flavorful and juicier. They certainly are more colorful.

In Kentucky Heirloom Seeds, Best describes many of the old-time varieties of beans and tomatoes and lets those who have saved their seeds through the generations tell their stories. They speak of a time when gardening was not just a hobby or a pleasurable activity but a necessary part of feeding the family. In the days before food stamps and welfare, vegetable gardening was food security. The seed savers tell of growing acres of vegetables and canning hundreds of quarts of beans and other vegetables—and always saving seeds for the next year.

Over his lifetime, Best has collected dozens of Kentucky heirloom seeds and makes them available through the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center. When you’re ordering your garden seeds next year, consider planting a piece of Kentucky history and culture. The Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center offers more than 175 varieties of Appalachian regional heirloom beans and about 50 tomato varieties on its website, heirlooms.org.

Best writes that he is witnessing a resurging interest in heirlooms:

“A quiet revolution is taking place as many thousands of people discover heirloom beans. Although most of these beans require staking or trellising, and most of them must be strung prior to cooking, the end product is worthy of the name, food.”

Bill Best. Hunger Hero.

Readers may contact Walt Reichert at editor@ kentuckymonthly.com

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No. of Single Issues Published Nearest to Filing Date: 18,874. 16C) Total Print Distribution + Paid Electronic Copies: Avg. No. of Copies Each Issue during Preceding 12 Mos.: 19,026. No. of Single Issues Published Nearest to Filing Date: 18,874. 16D) Percent Paid: Avg. No. of Copies Each Issue during Preceding 12 Mos.: 61.77%. No. of Single Issues Published Nearest to Filing Date: 61.64%. I certify that statements made above are correct & complete. Stephen M. Vest, Publisher & Editor.