[Joey] On this special edition of "Journey Proud," we're profiling the work of Alabama gardeners preserving older varieties of vegetables through the practice of seed saving.

Where do you get your heirloom seeds?

I get 'em through a seed trade.

They actually believing in holding old seeds and just let 'em reseed theyselves, and they give it to other people, so they share 'em, so when I save seeds from this, I be sharing 'em.

[Joey] We'll travel from the Tennessee border to the Gulf of Mexico, meeting the green-thumbed heroes who are reviving traditional gardening methods in an era of industrial agriculture.

If I took my phone and went there, what would I see?

[Farmer] It would take you to a description of what's in the bottle.

-The history of this.

-The history, the age of it, who grew it, if we know that.

Just as much, we love to have a story.

Some of 'em come to us with a good story.

[Joey] During the last several generations, most of us have left our agricultural roots.

As farming became big business, it was optimized towards certain varieties of food crops for profit and marketability, but recently concern over food safety, quality, and sustainability has caused some to return to seed saving.

Whoever brings us any kinda seed, we ask for as much history as they can, 'cause that's cultural history that belongs to all of us and it honors those who went ahead of us, because we've been domesticating things for 10,000 years and we'll never know how many hands all those seeds passed down to here, but if we can preserve some of the history and culture of this area, so much the better.

(relaxed music)