One day, in 1972, Kathleen Plunkett-Black was walking past a neighboring garden in western Wisconsin whose owners had moved away. A vegetable patch was left unattended and had turned into a wasteland. Dried bean pods were hanging from the plants there, unnoticed and ready to be discarded. Instead of leaving them there, Kathleen decided not to miss the opportunity and picked the beans and planted them in her own garden. Initially, it seemed very logical not to discard seeds that could have been used for planting. Luckily, this tiny action gradually turned into a campaign for the preservation of heirloom varieties of vegetables.
Many years later, she registered more than 150 varieties with Seed Savers Exchange, helping keep rare vegetables from being forgotten. She has donated 10 varieties of seeds to the Heritage Farm seed bank and continues to share seeds and knowledge with other gardeners, as recorded in the Seed Savers Exchange stewardship story.
