The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 43

Saving seeds from a garden can be fun Nkky remembered All the rules parents learn were broken on tragic day ii mimmim 4L2AJ "Hi, Iwould like to tellyou about myself. I'll start with my hobbies. I like sports a lot. My favorite one is baseball and then football. Oh, I forgot, my name is Nick.

Nick Corwin, really. My initials are N.B. C. Nicholas Brent Corwin. My birthday is April9th.

lam 7yearsold." "He played soccer, hockey, tennis, baseball and football," Linda said. "He was very much a natural athlete. He had a natural grace about him. I think he learned early on that to be cocky wasn't going to get him anywhere, so he was very supportive of the other kids on his teams." Not alone in anguish Joel remembers the autumn football. Nicky teamed with his older brother, against his dad and younger brother, for backyard games that would last past dark.

When the snows came, they moved to the living room. Linda played quarterback, sending Nicky deep to the fireplace while rock blared on the stereo. The floor in front of the fireplace is now covered with baskets of condolence letters. Some have been answered. Others wait.

Linda has promised herself she'll get to them all. The signatures are those of parents, strangers mostly, compelled to let the Corwins know they weren't alone in their anguish. "I've gotten so many beautiful letters," Linda said. "It means a lot to us to know that so many other people care, and it means a lot to know that he touched so many people, even though he was only around for such a short time." On the mantel above the baskets, a display of pictures depicts family trips to Arizona and Walt Disney World. Joel plucks a favorite from the bunch.

Nicky, wearing a comically too-large cowboy hat, is tucked snugly under his father's arm as they sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon. For their other two children, life has to go on. Since Nicky's death the Corwins have tried to shield the boys from publicity, asking that their names and photographs not be used in news accounts. No answers "In the beginning, they asked, Linda said. "They don't ask about it any more.

Partly because they know there really is no answer. Partly because I think they are trying to protect our feelings, too." Frustration. Anger. Fear. Grief.

Linda and Joel Corwin are left with a million emotions every time they replay the events of that terrible morning. "One does not feel a whole lot like giving in this situation," said Linda. "I don't know; I don't feel I have a lot to give right now. I used to enjoy living life to the fullest. Now it's a struggle.

"I think a loss is a loss. If you lose a child through an illness or a car accident, it's a terrible loss and no less painful than this, but the horror of the way this happened is really too difficult for us to contemplate." "It goes beyond that," Joel said, almost in a whisper. "There aren't words to express that, but there are a couple of primary feelings. We miss hugging him basking in his radiance. At the same time, there is a frustration that is difficult for me to deal with.

He is missing everything life had to offer." "There is no way to put closure on this kind of loss," Linda said. "All we can ever hope to do is come to terms with it." "Every day I see him smiling at me with a twinkle in his eye," added Joel. "That keeps me going. "Nicky would have wanted us to go on." By DAVID SILVERMAN eltMChicotoTribuiw ft was September 1987, the first week of school in Mrs. Amy Deuble second-grade class at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, a northern Chicago suburb.

All the students in Room 7 were Nicky's young life was ended by woman's bullet. writing about themselves on sheets of wide-lined history of bizarre behavior, shattered the Corwins' lives before ending her own during a brief but violent rampage. Her story and those of the five children and the young man she wounded are widely known. But somehow, Nicky Corwin was lost in the crush of publicity. Aside from a brief statement the Corwins released the day of his death, and a funeral sermon two days later, the story of Nicky's short life was left to the memory of the neighbors, classmates and friends.

i i but the horror of the way this happened is really too difficult for us to Linda Corwin, mother of a child gunned down in school CHRIS WALK ERChlcoflo Tribune By MONICA BRANDIES Mother Nature never buys new seeds for her garden. She isn't exactly a great saver, either. She scatters her seeds around with wild abandon. She feeds them to the bifds and squirrels and other wildlife. Many seeds fall on fallow ground, but she presses enough into good earth to assure the continuation of her choice of crops.

Should we save seeds from our own gardens? With today's seed and nursery industry eager to provide us with more than we ever knew we needed, it isn't necessary. But it is fun, and I'm likely to save anything from a few envelopes of favorite flowers to a grocery bag of shoofly seeds. However, there are some drawbacks to seed saving. The plant you have at the moment is one parent of the seeds it produces. The other parent may be growing as far as a quarter-mile away.

For true purity, your plant must be that far away from any similar plant. Or you must cover flowers with paper bags and remove these only to pollinate them by hand. This is not difficult with a child's paint brush. Just brush over the stamens of the male flower, then the pistil or center of the female. If you don't go to that extreme, and believe me, I don't, seeds may or may not come true to color or form.

That doesn't matter with zinnias, but your squash seed could produce gourds or cucumbers next year. So I save zinnias and buy squash seed. Seed companies produce hybrid seeds especially those marked in the catalog by complicated planting patterns of the parents. If your hybrid petunias self-sow, they usually revert to the fragrant old-fashioned pale pink, white and lavender ones. What to buy In many cases, the hybrid plant varieties are so superior it is well worth the price of new seed.

That doesn't mean we can't still save seeds from standard varieties. As a rule, buy new seed when you want an exact color, kind or height. Save seed of most flowers, beans, peas, okra and herbs when anything fairly close will be fine. Sometimes it's the best way to acquire something new. I know one can lose a hand reaching for a seedpod in an iris breeder's garden.

But along the roadside or where seeds are plentiful, you can bring home a forest of plants in your pocket. Seeds are fun to share. It's exciting to get a letter that rattles with seeds. Seeds make thoughtful tuck-in gifts for birthday or Christmas cards. Many people save seeds to preserve a favorite rare vegetable.

The Seed Savers Exchange (Route 3, Box 239, Decorah, la. 52101) is an organization of gardeners dedicated to saving heirloom and endangered vegetable varieties from extinction. They publish a yearbook in which members describe and list the varieties of seed they have and offer them to other members. A responsibility to continue to plant and to keep the varieties pure comes with the seeds. Such magazines as National Gardening feature a monthly seed-swap column in which you can find unusual varieties and share your extras.

Gardeners save seeds in the hope of improving a variety. If one bean plant has superior size, flavor or production, saving seed from it may produce something even better. Breeders keep careful records of crosses. The rest of us just save, replant and hope for the best. Full of surprises Seeds are full of surprises.

A grower in Muscatine took a seed from a pear she was eating and pushed it down into the soil of a houseplant. When it sprouted and grew, she was curious enough to plant it outside. The parent pear had come from the grocery store, perhaps originally from California. She was not sure the seedling would survive Iowa winters, but it did. It grew and bore good fruit.

A lady in the Bahamas planted a seed from a golden delicious apple from the supermarket. Hers grew, survived the heat and bore fruit. Most apples require cold, but this one did not. Her seedling led to the Dorsett variety that grows in many Florida yards, including mine. If you have the room, the time and the inclination, this can be a cheap and exciting way to gamble.

You have to be prepared to throw away 99 seedlings out of every hundred. But that last one could be tastier or hardier or bluer than ever before. You can also save seeds for the birds. In addition to liking sunflowers, they like seeds of marigold, zinnia, many grasses, most daisy-type flowers, amaranthus, calendulas, goldenrod and melons. Some seeds are so good to eat that they never get to the birds.

We always save the seeds from pumpkins, wash them in a colander and spread them out to dry. The next time the oven is warm, in goes a cookie sheet of pumpkin seeds. Coat them with butter and salt and stir once or twice. After 20 minutes of roasting at 325 degrees, they make a super snack. Seeds of winter squash can be saved and served this way, too.

How do you go about saving seeds? Just break off likely looking seedpods when they seem dry. It's a good idea to gather them over a period of two weeks, just in case they weren't as ripe as they seemed. Save pods and all You can save pods and all. Put them in an envelope. The seeds usually fall to the bottom eventually, then you can discard the pods.

Write the seed name on the envelope and put it in a shoe box or drawer. To share seeds, you really ought to write a little more description and instruction on the envelope. Include sun or shade requirements; best time, depth and width apart to plant; probable color, and height. Kent Whealy of Seed Savers Exchange says you should save seeds from several plants rather than just one. Select parent plants for special size, flavor, earliness, disease-, drought- and insect-resistance, color, shape, hardiness and storability.

Mark for seed collection the lettuce that is early to head and slow to bolt, the tomato that ripened first and produced the longest. Dry seeds completely before storing. This is best done on the plant with vegetables like beans and peas. Let melons and tomatoes get a bit over-ripe. Scrape out the seeds and soak them for a day or more in water.

Let them begin to ferment, but watch closely. The pulp should be loosened by rubbing it between the fingers. Lift out the seeds and dry them on paper or spread on a screen in the sun. Move them to the shade if the temperature exceeds 90 degrees. When seeds are thoroughly dry, put each variety in a paper envelope and label with name and year.

Place seed packets in glass jar with a tight-fitting lid or a coffee can taped closed with electrician's tape. Put a packet containing non-fat dried milk in the jar to absorb moisture. The best place to store seeds is in the freezer, says Whealy. The next best spot is the refrigerator. Kept cold, the seeds will retain their maximum vigor up to five times longer.

Monica Brandies is a horticulturist and longtime Iowa Resident now living in Florida. paper. "I have two brothers, one older, one younger. They are 5 and 1 0. My dad's name is Joel.

His job is a lawyer. My mom's name is Linda. She takes care of us as her job. My favorite color is blue. My favorite letter is N.

My favorite number is 3." These were entries in a journal each student would keep throughout the year. On special occasions, they would write how they felt, and Mrs. Deuble would take a picture of each of them, to be glued at the top of the pagev The small handwritten booklet now sits unfinished on a coffee table in the bright living room of Joel and Linda Corwin's Winnetka home. It's among a stack of stories, drawings and dreams they found in Nicky's small school desk, just feet from where he was murdered. Photographs of him are everywhere in the whitewashed living room.

On the piano against the wall. On the mantel above the fireplace. On the bookshelves. Linda and Joel sit close to each other on an overstuffed couch near the center of the room, surrounded by memories of their son and the horror of what happened at 1 0:25 a.m. on May 20, 1988.

They remember it was the first day Nicky was allowed 1 to ride his bicycle to school. He was late, so his older brother waited for him. After two weeks spent learning the rules of the road, Nicky had earned the bike privilege. If he passed the written bicycle safety test at school that day, he could ride with his brother until the end of the year. "They had one and only one day to ride their bikes to school together," said Linda Corwin, "and that was it." Letters slow to trickle The nation knows what happened during Nicky Corwin's bicycle safety test that morning.

Around 10:15, just as he began the test, a ragged, dark-haired woman wearing shorts entered the second-grade classroom and sat down. She said nothing and soon left. She returned at 10:25 with two guns and opened fire. Five children were wounded. Eight-year-old Nicholas Brent Corwin was killed.

He was shot once in the heart. On a hazy Sunday morning two months later, the Corwin house is quiet. No more national magazine coverage or live television interviews. The flood of thousands of letters has slowed to a trickle. The new phone number is unlisted.

What remains are the stack of papers from school, the photographs and daily reminders of a boy whose name meant "giver of gifts." "There is a void," said Joel. "It's like a picture, and there's a blank there. We'll always have the feeling that he's there, but he's not." "Our world view has been permanently altered," Linda said. "All the rules were broken with this incident." Memories of Iowa The Corwins met at Yale University and graduated as part of the first coeducational class there. They were married and went on to the University of Minnesota to earn advanced degrees his in law, hers in public affairs.

They moved to Chicago and began to climb the ladder. The urban lifestyle suited the new corporate lawyer and his wife, a city planner; but when Linda became pregnant, she willingly gave up her career, and the couple prepared for a change. They sought refuge in the heart of the North Shore, where the homes were expensive and large, and the schools were the best. They chose a red brick and white stucco house on a street lined with close-cut lawns and i 50-foot-tall oaks. It reminded Linda of her childhood home in Waterloo, which she remembers as being "a suburb without a city." Her mother, Sylvia Weissman, still lives there.

"We sought the peace of mind, the perceived peace of mind, that we thought we would have for our children not having to worry about anything happening to them," Joel explained, shaking his head. The house was too big for the couple and their first son, but they were planning ahead. They were going to fill the rooms with a family. Three years later, Nicky was born. A third son followed three years later, and the family was complete.

Joel and Linda Corwin had created the suburban dream. They had a Volvo station wagon in the driveway, a beautiful family and success. Then all the rules would be broken. Laurie Wasserman Dann, a troubled 30-year-old with a 4iS: i mi III. r) 1,1 V- 11 it 4 Vv 5.v The Corwins don't ask why their child was gunned down at school.

They know that there is no answer..