Heirloom Seeds

Heirloom seeds are planted by people who want to enjoy fruits and vegetables that are “a taste of the past.” These seed savers know that many varieties of crops have been lost in recent years because fewer and fewer people save seed from year to year. The psalmist was a seed saver himself, and he suggests what we can do to raise up a few righteous trees “which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.”

It was a major — melon — moment when seed savers rediscovered the “Moon and Stars” watermelon variety. Read on.

When you hear the words “Moon and Stars,” you probably think about the night sky, or astronomy, or space exploration.

What you probably don’t ponder is watermelons.

“Moon and Stars” is the name of a particularly valuable, dark-green, spotted variety of watermelon. An odd and beautiful melon, it has yellow specks called stars and larger spots called moons.

At one point, this “Moon and Stars” variety was feared to be lost forever, but then a group of seed savers pinned down a man who was still growing it.

Because of the seeds obtained from him, this melon has been brought back from the brink of extinction to the full bloom of commercial success.

The return of “Moon and Stars” was a major melon moment — especially to gardeners who are part of the esoteric world of seed savers and heirloom seeds. An heirloom seed is a type of seed that has been passed down through a number of...