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.
This is our second year growing cassava at @frannysfarm. The first year @ruizplantas gave us some stem cuttings to propagate, which is a great way to get started. However one question we are always asking ourselves at the Utopian Seed Project is how to be sustainable within our own region, and so we always want to be able to propagate our own planting material. In many cases that means seed saving, but for the longer season perennials it means some kind of vegetative propagation that needs to be overwintered. When we harvested our cassava last winter I stored the stems in my basement. This spring we cut and planted the stems in pots. Today we planted out cassava plants from those rooted cuttings! Excited to see how they do in year two.
#cassava #tuspcassava #farming #yuca
Our @southernsare On Farm Research grant has allowed us to ramp up our taro growing investigation. Today we planted 5 80ft rows of taro with each row split into 11 blocks so we could replicate different treatments and make more accurate assessments from the results. We are comparing planting time, planting material (type and size), watering intensity, leaf harvest vs no leaf harvest, and we also have a number of different varieties that we're increasing propagation material on for next year's variety trial. It's all pretty exciting and I'm very grateful to @leeza.chen who is my official grant funded taro research assistant! Plus volunteer gratitude to Justin s well as @soulfullsimonefarm who was riding around on a tractor looking cool (and is responsible for me farming at the @sahccommunityfarm). And finally @lichenology is the brains behind the trial design 🤩
#taro #croptrials #tusptaro #onfarmresearch #farming
Our purple sweet potato tasting at our #trialtotable event this last weekend was lots of fun. 40 people completed the entire trial and shared their thoughts on sweetness, texture and overall flavor. We also have lots of 'keywords' to enter into a database and will be looking for patterns! You can see the interactive results via the link in our bio!
We tasted 7 purple sweet potatoes (Purple Becca, Purple Lee, Purple Cornelia, Purple Majesty, Purple Splendor, Camote Morado, and a store bought Stokes Purple).
Store bought Stokes actually ranked pretty high, which surprised us, but it's worth noting that it probably had ideal storage conditions in a way that our own varieties did not. @ncstateorganic Purple Majesty and Purple Splendor varieties are newer releases and both did well - good to know our NC plant breeders know what they are doing! Also pleasing to see Camote Morado doing well, which has been my favorite for a couple of years!
Check out the results for yourself via the link in our bio.
Thanks to @seedlinked for making the tasting platform so easy to use and share results. Thanks to all the willing testers. Thanks to Yanna Fishman for providing most of the purple sweet potatoes and for prepping the plates along with @leeza.chen Thanks to the relatively few 'poop' jokes (open to feedback on how to pipe pureed purple sweet potatoes differently...).
#camote #sweetpotato #ipomeabatatas #tastetests #purplesweetpotato #farming #croptrials
Last year @lovesomegreen was here in North Carolina helping to hand cross all our high oilseed okra varieties. This year we're growing out the F1 populations to start the process of developing a higher oil content variety. Here's one of the crosses growing in Arizona, where Jordan has an indoor growing operation and was able to get a big headstart. It's exciting to have collaboration across the country!
#Okra #oilseed #plantbreeding #tuspokra #oilseedokra #farming
Check out the menu for our #trialtotable event tomorrow! Last chance to buy tickets via the link in our bio.
#asheville
@Cupatato is brewing sweet potato as a coffee alternative: a semi-sweet, roasted & full-bodied drink to enjoy hot or cold. This non-caffeinated alternative satisfies the semi-sweet, dark and roasted flavors that coffee drinkers love. Made with local heirloom sweet potatoes and a historical recipe!
Cupatato is debuting the sweet potato drink at our Trial to Table event this Saturday. Your invited to sample and then share feedback to help guide this product in its emergent stages.
@Cupatato is brewing up to be a Worker-owned Cooperative and community asset. Taste-testing, focus groups, and inquiries into co-ownership will be welcomed.
Purchase Trial to Table tickets via the link in our bio.
#coffee
#Sweetpotato #sweetpotatocoffee #asheville #ashevilleevent #TrialtoTable
Traffic is bad today.
#farming #cows
Very pleased that the botanically inspired cider company, @botanistandbarrel
are donating their classic Less is More cider to our event on Saturday. Trial to Table Spring Celebration at the Asheville Masonic Temple is just 6 days away. Tickets are just $35 via the link in our bio.
Less is More is a natural cider showcasing the elegance of classic old-world methods, spontaneous fermentation and minimal intervention. Fermented with ambient yeast using the Pétillant Naturel method creates a beautiful fine bubble as it ages in the bottle. Made with a blend of local eating and traditional cider apples, it's delightfully effervescent, dry with subtle minerality with honey notes and racy acidity.
#cider #TrialtoTable
#Asheville #event #botany
At our upcoming Trial to Table Spring Celebration (ticket link in our bio) we'll have a purple sweet potato tasting, sweet potato coffee by @cupatato, and I'm very happy to announce that @baileycooks will be serving a very special sweet potato. Here is the backstory in @millardlocklear's own words:
Porto Rico Sweet Potatoes (all history is what my father passed down to me from his mother's family about history of Porto Rico Sweet Potatoes).
My daddy's mother's father and his family were woodmen. They traveled southeast part of U.S.A. cutting
timber and running sawmill in forest and bring wood out by train. Per daddy they living in Florida for several years, grandma was born on land they purchase around the Ocala National Forest, so they started raise these potatoes and always carried seed potatoes with them as they travel with sawmill.
Grandma's oldest brother and sister married in Florida. We have always my complete life raise these
sweet potatoes only these, when I married Connie daddy let us know, that she was welcome but she
could not bring here any of here family sweet potatoes. They raise a white type of sweet potatoes. In late 90’s a person came to farm asking if he could buy a bushel of them. He was telling daddy how he could improved the potatoes, that wasn’t a good meeting. The guy got daddy's oldest brother since he
stays in Clinton, N.C. to get some potatoes. After seven years the guy came back to show daddy his new
Porto Rico type. We do have those potatoes but it isn’t any way like daddy's.
Purchase tickets via the link in our bio.
#sweetpotatoes #cropstories #heritage #trialtotable #farming #farmers #food #asheville
Very excited that @cellarestbeerproject will be a drinks sponsor for our upcoming Trial to Table event (May 14, tickets limited). An experimental brewery in West Asheville creating botanically creative beers!
The special beer they are offering for our event is Persimverance - a Smoked Harvest Lager - 4.8% - Made from a base of southern select and pecan smoked corn from @riverbendmalt. Fermented with The Seed’s house lager yeast and naturally carbonated on Brazilian Amburana wood and NC foraged persimmons (this beer is a The Seed Living Beer Project Collab).
Tickets available via the link in our bio.
#beer #craftbeer #persimmonbeer #event #asheville #brewery
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
