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.
Seed Commons
Β Collective responsibility, sharing of knowledge and seed, protection from private enclosure, and distributed, polycentric governance are key features of Seed Commons. Equitable and open-source seed work is at the center of everything we do.
TRIAL TO TABLE
The Utopian Seed Project grows a wide range of crops and varieties with the aim of increasing agrobiodiversity into the food and farming system. We host food focused events and partner with incredible local chefs to showcase the crops weβre working with.
SE SEED VIDEO SERIES
This project traveled across 12 states and interviewed over 50 farmers, community gardeners, seed savers, seed growers and seed advocates. The footage was weaved together to tell the story and seed saving of six southern crops: corn, okra, southern peas, collards, sweet potatoes and squash.
It`s always fun to meet IG farm friends in the real world! We got a visit from Anita of @ashokrafarm who is doing amazing food justice work and farm worker organizing through @notourfarm as well as having the best logo and gifting us some farm grown okra chips π
#farming
Honored to be named a @gardenandgun 2023 Champion of Conservation alongside some other great folks. Check out the latest edition of Garden & Gun!
#seeds
Our emerging seed growers collective had our first Community Seed Processing Day, cleaning seeds from local seed growers. The equipment we have in our mobile seed processing trailer will help scale seed growing in the region, making it more realistic for farmers to grow and sell seeds π
#seedgrowing #seedfarmers #seedsaving #seeds #seedcleaning
Our current solution to threshing eggplant seeds. Basically we made a big blender out of a 60 gal barrel, a drill, paint mixer and old 13" mower blade we ground down blunt. I wish I had an action shot, but it actually kind of worked!
#seedsaving
Evaluation day on the sorghum grow out. We have 29 varieties kindly sent to us by @experimentalfarmnetwork and today @breathequilibrium and @leeza.chen took notes and photos!
There`s some really pretty sorghum out there π
#sorghum
Check out the over achieving sorghum π
#sorghum
In case you`re wondering, this is an okra flower and roselle `green` mead, naturally carbonated and served with a slice of frozen lime, an okra petiole straw and okra salted rim π
Looking forward to tomorrow`s Beyond the Pod seminar for @chowchow_avl
#okra #thewholeokra
Okra seeds pickled in okra flower vinegar π Going to make a okra caviar vinegarette to top our okra bread.
#okraseed #okraflower #okra #thewholeokra
Winged beans (Psophocarpus tetragonolobus) are forming pods. This is a good example of finding the right variety. Last year we had beautiful lush foliage (which is edible) but not a single flower. The variety had a day length trigger on flowering that meant it frosted before we got flowers. This year @laughingspringsfarm shared a variety described as day length neutral and we have late season flowers and pods forming. This southeast Asian legume is prized for its nutrition, multipart use and disease resistance. Excited for the tastings to come!
#wingedbean #legumediversity
This is a test run of my okra leaf faux-seaweed salad served on an okra petal π
Having so much fun prepping for my @chowchow_avl seminar, Okra: Beyond the Pod
#okra #okraleaf #thewholeokra
Thanks to our Sustaining Sponsors
