The Utopian Seed Project is a hands in the earth non-profit committed to trialing crops and varieties in the Southeast to support and Celebrate diversity in food and farming. OUR VISION is an engaged community of growers, gardeners, farmers, foodies, cooks and chefs (actually, everyone) WHO embrace regional biodiversity for a resilient and delicious food and farming system.
OUR WORK
THe Experimental Farm
We growing many different things in Western North Carolina to explore what could be grown in a more diverse food and farming system. In our farm work we explore emerging crops for this region as well as variety trials for traditional crops. Diversity and experimentation is at our core!
Crop Stories
Crop Stories is our way of speaking about, educating and celebrating the crops that we are working with. Crop Stories includes a crop-specific event series, a crop-specific magazine and a supporting podcast, with a high degree of synergy between these three platforms.
The People's Seed
The People’s Seed allows us to keep seeds front and center of our work, knowing that seed sovereignty is critical to sustainable and equitable food systems. We engage in education and community outreach, as well as our own seed saving, plant breeding and regional adaptation work.
Splendid Seeds!
"They are more reliable and better adapted to the climate of the South than seeds grown in a colder region."
#regionaladaptation #truth #seeds #whydidweforget
The summer squash we are growing for @twoseedsinapod is starting to kick into production. Vigorous plants, lots of flowers and squash appearing.
One question we are keen to answer is how can seed growing be economically feasible for a farmer? Paying a good price for the seeds is definitely a good start (Mehmet is one of the better paying seed companies), but we're also interested in dual-cropping potential.
This squash variety is covered in male flowers and so we are going to harvest ~50% of them (leaving plenty for pollination) to sell to @market_place_avl. We'll have a full economic report at the end of the season to show how much can be made from a single row of summer squash.
Obviously there are lots of other good reasons to grow and save seed, but paying farmers should still be a priority.
#seseed #seedsaving #squash #summersquash #squashflowers
Photo update from The Experimental Farm at @frannysfarm
1. Ashleigh Shanti (@foodordeath_) tearing up after a big bite of Green Wave mustard! We sampled three varieties in the field as part of our #communityscience mustard trial with Seed Savers Exchange.
2. Three varieties of mustard. Interesting that Green in Snow and Black Mustard bolted WAY ahead of Green Wave.
3. We're growing a yellow cherry tomato for @sowtrueseed this year, but there's some sneaky taro that overwintered from last year. We're going to see how well they play together!
4. Leeza pushed us to grow more rice this year (but also promised to weed it!) 8 varieties all looking healthy.
5. We are running a small Yardlong Bean trial for @southernexposureseed this year. We have eight varieties in the ground and so far they're all looking beautiful and healthy. We're hoping to taste test these at our August 13 #TrialToTable event in Asheville.
6. Green Turmeric grown from our own stock is looking beautiful.
7. Our edible dahlia project is showing it's first signs of flowering, which has got the lightning bugs all excited.
8. Last year @lovesomegreen and I cross two of my most favorite okra varieties (Aunt Hettie's Red and Puerto Rico Everblush). F1s are growing and happy, although with these breeding projects it's the F2 that we're excited to see.
9. Pleased to be growing Togo Cassava from stems we cut from our own plants last year - they were overwintered in a basement and resprouted this spring.
10. We're creating a some intercrosses with squash - we have 5 diverse C. maximas that we're crossing up as well as 6 diverse C. moschata. In between each block of squash we have a West Virginian buckwheat that we're growing for @twoseedsinapod
#seeds #seseed #seedgrowing #seedsaving #farming #experimentalfarm #farm
Leeza spent some time yesterday teaching the @bountifulcities interns how to Florida weave.
Asa bonus we got to Florida weave Florida tomatoes that @workingfoodgnv
sent us.
We are growing two lines, five generations in, of a cross between a dwarf tomato and an everglades tomato. First fruits are just beginning to form!
#floridaweave #floridatomato #croptrials #tomatoes #farming
All of the Turkish cucurbit seed crops being grown for @twoseedsinapod - summer and winter squash, a gourd and a cucumber. We also have melons and watermelons at the other farm! They're beautiful and vigorous.
#SESeed #seedgrowing #seedsaving #seedfarm #seeds #farming
Dang it. The rain is coming right through the walls of my office.
#farmmeetings
Last year deer completely ate 400 row feet of Conch Pea, a delicious southern pea I'm trying to regenerate. So this year I've gone all Jurassic Park in the hopes of keeping the deer out.
#seedgrowing #farming #deer #southernpea #conchpea #seedsaving #seed #jurasicpark
Really grateful to have the opportunity to work with @bountifulcities interns this year. They're hardworking, engaged and open minded - the types of people we need tackling the challenges of our food system.
We'll be mixing class-style knowledge with plenty of hands on field work to experience multiple seed crops and crop trials throughout the growing season.
#farming #seedgrowing #community #seed #foodsystems
Harvesting some garlic scapes that we'll save for our chef's pantry that we make available to chefs when planning our trial to table dinners!
#garlicscapes #garlic #farming #harvesting
After a LOT of rain we jumped into the field at @frannysfarm to get some direct seeding done. Here @leeza.chen is seeding a buckwheat seed crop that we're growing for @twoseedsinapod Leeza seeded about 400 row feet and we will be measuring yield and processing time to get a better handle on the economics behind seed growing. Two Seeds in a Pod is extremely committed to paying seed farmers well, which really helps support our work.
Leeza is able to work with us this year as a sponsored Research Assistant because of funding from @southernexposureseed as well as additional support from @row7seeds and @organic_seed_alliance - we're incredibly grateful for all this support from the seed industry.
Also - Leeza is dragging our operation into the 21st Century with crazy ideas like using a seeder 😮
#seeds #farming #seedfarming #seedgrowing #buckwheat #jangseeder #croptrials #seed #seedcrops #seedsaving #seseed #southeastseed
The Experimental Farm Notebook
We’ll be publishing updates throughout the growing season so you can stay up to date with what we’re up to and how the experiments are going. This will be an informal narrative of our highs and lows, successes and failures, with photos and fun facts!
Thanks to our Sustaining Sponsors
