Brummet's Conscious Blog

Understanding Garden Terms Do you find yourself confused by terms like: hybrid, genetically modified, heirloom, open-pollinated, heritage and microsystem? In this article we will go over some basics that will help clear up some of the confusion. First, let’s look at the difference between a microsystem and an ecosystem. To gardeners an ecosystem would be used to describe the region’s average high and low temperatures, sea level, rainfall and moisture and the zone. A micro-system  (also spelled: microsystem) could be your entire property or sections of the property. For instance, if you have one corner that tends to remain moist, and another that gets mostly shade, while a different area has full sun… those are all examples of different micro-systems. Each microsystem will have plants and wildlife that will thrive in those particular conditions. Open-pollinated  means the plants produced naturally with nature doing all the work. Heritage  has come to mean open-pollinat...