Like a squirrel hoarding food for the winter, my seed-collecting tendencies are strong. I save seeds produced in the garden for next year’s sowing, and every January I page through seed catalogs to add new varieties to my seed storage box for future garden experiments. Collecting seeds helps me imagine the possibility that lives within every packet and within us all if given the right conditions to thrive.
During these pandemic years, I developed a simple seed-centered mindfulness activity to reset my outlook when it’s getting stormy inside. The newest climate-related catastrophe got you down? The state of the social media political misinformation machine breaking your heart? Grab a favorite food or flower seed packet. Hold it next to your ear with your eyes closed and give that packet a shake. Hear that raspy rattle of seeds as their hard shells brush against each other? That’s the sound of hope, the start of something beautiful right there in your hands.
Seeds can’t make everything right with the world, but they’re a great reminder that even the tiniest things hold power and potential.
It’s not too late to grab your own seed-y packages of potential, and while you can grab seeds from big-box home and garden stores (some in my area are now carrying more niche seed varieties from companies like Botanical Interests and Seeds of Change), I hope that you’ll join me this year on a quest to also support some of the best small seed company farming operations. If you’re a small-scale gardener like me, we have very different growing goals than those of industrial-scale farmers who must buy bags and bags of seeds to sow over their vast acreage.
I’m in the gardening game to learn how to live in relationship with my small piece of land. I like growing “landscaped” plants that thrive in my climate, and I love cultivating unique fruit and vegetable varieties that large-scale farm operations are unable to grow and sell for a profit to our supermarkets.
Those into heirloom gardening are familiar with Baker Creek Heirloom and Rare Seeds. Their annual Whole Seed Catalog is an encyclopedia of rare seeds, many of which I’d never heard of until I read their stories there. Baker Creek is based in rural Missouri and is now far from the small seed farming operation it was 10 years ago. Still, it’s the standard by which many other seed companies catering to market farmers and home gardeners aspire as the interest grows for producing home-grown, nutrient-dense food.
Seek Out Regionally Successful Seeds.
My seed storage box is stuffed with Baker Creek seed packets (did I mention they have some great catalog copywriters who can make cucumber seeds sound magical?). And last month I branched out and purchased from two smaller operations with missions I want to support and who sell seed varieties that can thrive in Colorado's extreme climate and short growing season.
Sandia Seed Company
I’ve followed Sandia Seed Company on Instagram for a few years and am in love with their wide array of pepper seeds. They sell a variety of other seeds, but every time I see a post of theirs about a new-to-me chili pepper, I start dreaming of all the sauces I could make if I grew enough of them.
Founded in 2008 by an avid American Southwest gardener with a desire to make the green chile pepper accessible for all gardeners interested in growing their own, their seed varieties have expanded to include not only regional peppers like the New Mexico green chile but ones from across the globe. They sell heirloom open-pollinated seed varieties that are not readily available from large seed companies.
This year I’ll be trying Sandia’s Thai Hot Chili Heirlooms, Red Cherry Chili Hot Heirlooms, Guajillo Chile Pepper Heirlooms, and Mosco Mirasol Pueblo Chile Peppers. Each comes with a history and a culinary tradition that I want to learn more about, and cultivating these plants gives me an opportunity to help ensure their genetic diversity lives on for future generations.
Native Seeds/SEARCH
More than a straight-up seed farming operation, Native Seeds/SEARCH got its start in 1983 when soon-to-be co-founders were helping with a food security project with the Tohono O’odham Nation. Tribal elders shared their community’s desire to access the seeds their grandparents grew as part of their traditional foodways.
Based in Tucson, Arizona, the nonprofit seed conservation organization supports sustainable farming and food security and conserves and promotes the agro-biodiversity of the arid Southwest. They preserve over 2,000 crop varieties (many of them rare or endangered) that are adapted to arid landscapes, from the U.S. to Mexico. As someone growing food in increasingly more desert-like conditions, I’m all about working with seeds adapted for our changing climate conditions.
As Native Seeds/SEARCH shares on its About page, this collection of seeds tries to honor the “cultural heritage and farming knowledge of over 50 indigenous communities, as well as recent immigrants like Spanish missionaries and Mormon homesteaders,” and they “also conserve a number of crop wild relatives, wild ancestors of domesticated plants.”
You can find more than 500 seed varieties for sale on their website, as well as a gift shop with locally made goods. Sale proceeds enable free seed distribution to Native American families and community gardens.
After a great dried bean harvest last year, I’ve committed to growing more of this protein powerhouse to balance the many varieties of greens I cultivate. Native Seeds/SEARCH offers a variety of culturally rich bean seeds to help with my efforts. This year, I’ll be direct-sowing their Seed Bank Collection Conservation Farm Bean Mix. Next month I’ll start their Seed Bank Collection Ordoño Chile Peppers indoors until I can safely transplant to the garden area in late May. These peppers hails from Mexico and are billed as ones that will be happy in large outdoor planters, so I’m hoping to grow them in pots placed in a hot and very sun location by my work studio.
Finally, I’ll be adding a Seed Bank Collection Navajo Copper Popcorn corn to our garden after years of my daughter’s calls for homegrown corn. Because my one attempt to grow corn in our yard ended quickly when squirrels dug out all the seeds and ate them without remorse, I chose this corn variety because it will top out at three feet tall, so I can protect them under our anti-hail (aka anti-squirrel) netting.
More of the Best Small Seed Companies
Sandia Seed and Native Seeds/SEARCH are just two of the many great small seed farming operations doing important work in sustainable farming. Here are a few others I’m hoping to support in the years to come:
Adaptive Seeds – Sweet Home, Oregon
Experimental Farm Network – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Fruition Seeds – Naples, New York
Seeds Trust – Denver, Colorado
True Love Seeds – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Ujamaa Seeds - Maryland
Uprising Seeds – Bellingham, Washington
You Have Seeds. Now What?
Getting pumped to start seeds this year and need a refresher on the process? I’ve got you covered with seed starting tips.
Seed Starting Not in the Cards? Furrow & Trowel's Got You Covered.
Interested in growing some of the plants I mentioned in this post but don’t have time to start them from seed? I start more seeds than I need for my garden each year and sell extra seedlings in May ahead of transplanting time. Hit me up via my contact form, and I’ll get you on my buyers’ list and keep you posted about a sale date when we near May.
The past few years I’ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the health and hardiness of the seedlings I sell, as well as the substantial harvests from the plants when they mature. There’s a marked difference between big-box store seedlings and ones that are cultivated and cared for by individuals who have the ability to pay attention in a way that is not possible for large growing operations.
Here’s to a year of gardening where we help conserve plants for future generations so that our food and flowers remain diverse and adapted to this planet we call home.