You Reap What You Sow - Meet Ira Wallace, Godmother of Southern Seeds

March 18, 2023 10:35 AM

(NYTimes link) Story about seed banks, radical sharing, and endless local varieties. Or just go straight to the seed bank and start planning out your garden. Many of the descriptions of the various seeds are interesting bits of history in and of themselves. Happy gardening!
posted by coffeecat (6 comments total)

Greasy beans are truly amazing.
posted by freakazoid at 11:08 AM on March 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Hear are some links to a few more seed companies that are doing good things.

https://www.heirlooms.org

https://victoryseeds.com

https://www.rareseeds.com

https://hudsonvalleyseed.com
posted by freakazoid at 11:10 AM on March 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

Open Source Seed Initiative
posted by aniola at 11:45 AM on March 18, 2023 [1 favorite]

There’s an article about seed catalogues in the current New Yorker.
posted by staggernation at 7:22 PM on March 18, 2023

I really enjoyed this article. I'm interested in growing some of the sorghum in the Caribbean, it was a pretty important subsistence crop here.
posted by snofoam at 5:34 AM on March 19, 2023

Heyyyy I work with Southern Exposure! (Have co-managed the wholesale division of the business for the past 7 years). Great to see SESE getting attention <3
Re: other seed companies doing good things, I want to note that Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) has been involved in some... controversy (of the supporting white supremacy nature) in the past couple years, and folks might want to look elsewhere.
But there are so many other fantastic small seed companies:
Ujamaa Seeds (great article/interview here)
Snake River Seed Cooperative
Common Wealth Seed Growers
Kitazawa Seed Co
Truelove Seeds
Native Seeds SEARCH
Johnny's
Fedco
Sow True
And more!
posted by chantenay at 7:37 PM on March 20, 2023 [1 favorite]