Vintage seed packets as art

I’m a gardener at heart. You should see my fuchsia and white peonies in the spring, and my phlox varieties in the summer. I don’t plant with seeds. It’s just something I never got into, and besides, seeds don’t come up at my auctions. (A couple months ago, however, I did decide to put away some coneflower seeds for the spring, just to try my hand at it.)

I have purchased old lovely seed packets in the past, the ones with the beautiful lithographs of flowers and vegetables. I bought them for framing as art, and have several hanging on the walls of my kitchen.

I got to thinking about my seed packets while reading an article recently by Philadelphia Inquirer gardening writer Virginia Smith about the D. Landreth Seed Co., which is celebrating its 225^th year. The company was purchased six years ago by a former female venture capitalist with a combined love of history and gardening. She moved it to an area just outside Philadelphia, where the company was founded in 1784.

What was most intriguing about owner Barbara Melera’s story was that she had teamed with a man named Michael Twitty, who has a website on African American culinary history before Emancipation. Together, they worked on the African American Heritage Collection, seeds inspired by the foods consumed by Africans and Caribbeans who were slaves in America.

The collection – whose seeds were already in the Landreth catalog – consisted of 34 items, including California black-eyed peas, green-striped cushaw pumpkin, Charleston wakefield cabbage, Georgia southern collards, late flat dutch cabbage, Georgia rattlesnake watermelon and West Indian callaloo spinach. Also included are Brown Crowder cowpeas and West India burr gherkins, both of which originated in African.

To highlight the collection, Melera is using an original painting commissioned by the company in 1909 of a female sharecropper called “Aunt Chloe Preparing Dinner.”  The painting was based on a photo from the 19^th century, which, as indicated in the news article, was not very complimentary. The painting, though, gave Chloe some dignity.

I have four original seed packets still in the plastic I bought them in and six that I’ve had framed, all with lithographs of flowers and vegetables. Three of the unframed ones were made by Burt’s Seed, two with publication dates of 1915 and 1916. The lithographs were done by Genesee Valley Lithograph Co., Rochester, N.Y. The other unframed packet was from Wayne Bash Seed Co., in Fort, Wayne, ID. The lithographer was Stecher-Traung, Roch (Rochester), NY.

My framed packets were from Card Seed Co., Fredonia, NY, with lithographs by Genesee. There is no year on them. All 10 of my packets appear to be originals, not reproductions.

According to thelabelman.com website, Burt’s and Card are the most prevalent seed packets. If you’d like to see more of the lithographic labels, check out this website. Also, take a look at its can and crate labels, whose lithography is just as fantastic.

The Pine Street Art Works (Burlington, VT) blog has more images of seed packets.