Sarah Ross, founder of Social Roots will join the Market from 9am to 1 pm Friday May 17. Social Roots promotes heirloom plants that are particularly well adapted to the South. One of the goals is to get people “hooked” on heirlooms. An heirloom is a plant variety that has a history of being passed down within a family or community, similar to the generational sharing of heirloom jewelry or furniture “It’s important to reconnect our Southern heritage foodways with heirloom vegetables and our local farming landscape.” Sarah continues “It’s about getting back to our history and our agricultural roots. At Social Roots, we grow and distribute seeds that are as healthy for the planet as they are for your table. Looking ahead, it’s important to develop varieties of plants with greater resilience to meet the outcomes of our changing world, particularly along the coast,” Social Roots founder Sarah Ross explains. “These are bulletproof varieties that can be grown virtually anywhere.” Saving seeds is something we can all do to protect our favorite plants. Varieties are dropped from seed catalogs every year. If you have a favorite open pollinated vegetable or flower, it’s pretty easy to save seeds so that you can pass them on to the next generation.
Social Roots has distributed free seeds to individuals, schools, scout troops, community gardens, family farms and chefs.
A perfect partner for Social Roots is Pollinator Day also on the 17th. Most plants require pollination to set seeds. We need bees and other pollinators so that we can save seeds from our favorite plants. World Bee day is May 20 and Mickey Cunningham will help us celebrate early with our own Pollinator Day. Mickey is a local beekeeper and head of the Honey Show at the Grayson County Fair this year. He will bring a demonstration hive and other information on bees to share with the public.