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
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 we’re 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.
Spent yesterday afternoon with board member, Yanna Fishman. Yanna has been working with a lot of the tropical perennials for a long time and her work is a massive reason we`re able to do what we do.
These photos show selections of the darkest purple ube (Dioscorea alata) as we try to establish reasons for cor variations in root stock.
#ube #yams #tuspyam
Transplanted 200 baby okra plants today at Mark Dempsey`s farm in Swonanoa. This is a seed crop of Yalova Akkoy for @twoseedsinapod, an okra variety that we trialed in 2018 and impressed @oldnorthfarmer! Excited to be growing a lot of it this year and looking forward to eating some as well as saving seed!
#seseed #okra #seedsaving
We transplanted the taro trial today. Six varieties in a replicated block design. Two varieties to expand stock. And four brand new experimental varieties. 360 row feet of taro is going to look so beautiful in a couple of months 💚
This is part of our on-farm research grant from @southernsare
#taro #tarotrial
Diversity is beautiful. This is Frank Morton`s (@wild_garden_seed) everything lettuce mix that we`ll be selecting for bolting and flavor 💚
#lettuce
We publish and sell a magazine that takes a deep dive into single crops through art, poetry, essay and recipes!
We believe we can create deeper connections and understanding within our food system by focusing our outreach on crops, cultures and cuisines.
We`re currently working on Issue 8 - Southern Peas with @dr.cynthiar.greenlee @taamooore and @southern_seed_queen and all sales help to support this next publication (which includes paying our contributors fairly!).
Link via our bio 💚
@cropstories
#cropstories #foodwriting #collards
I`ve been wanting to work with Aibika for a long time and thanks to @hawaiibananasource I now have a really diverse mix of planting material. Known for its deeply nutritious heat loving leaves, this close relative to okra is a staple green on many Pacific Island Nations.
#aibika #bele #abelmoschus
So much fun at our Spring Trial to Table. Thanks to The Mule (@themuleavl) for their beautiful event space and for Shay Brown (@shaybrownevents) for sponsoring the venue. The chefs were all amazing, so big shout out to Sunil Patel (@123treesp), Erica Glaubitz (@bunintendedavl) , Mallory Foster (@mypalmalgal / @eldravl and Eli Je-Bailey (@hominyfarm). Also Luis Martinez (@luismartinezcreative) and Jamie Swofford (@oldnorthfarmer) running the flatbread tasting table. Terri Terrell (@chefttlivinandlovin) does a lot of work behind the scenes to make these events possible and the entire Utopian Seed Project board is extremely supportive. And obviously, the wonderful community that always turns up to support and celebrate and make this work mean something!
SAVE THE DATE (or just go ahead and buy a ticket via our bio!): Summer Trial to Table will be on Aug 19.
#trialtotable #chefs #ashevilleevents #ashevillenc
People often ask how they can access the seeds we`re working with, well this year @southernexposureseed are selling our Puerto Rico Everblush and 50% of all sales support our project. It`s one of @blueandyellowmakes favorite varieties.
"In 2018 Chris Smith (author of the James Beard Award winning book, The Whole Okra) grew 76 varieties of okra. One of the varieties was a USDA accession called Puerto Rico Evergreen, which was collected in May 1953 at the Rio Piedras Experiment Station in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico Evergreen stood out from the beginning – it was early, productive and delicious (ranking highly in a number of taste tests). The plants were tall and beautiful with solid red-green stems. The pods were generally green with red blushing and a mix of rounded to ridged in shape. There was a range of spininess, but some pods were super smooth. It quickly became one of Chris’ favorite okras. In 2019 and 2020 Chris shared seeds with SESE founder, Jeff McCormack, who now also describes it as his favorite okra. Since 2018 Chris has made consistent selections for pods that are smooth to velvety, rounded in shape (i.e. no ridges), and with significant red blushing. The pods are quite long and thin and can generally be harvested around 6 inches in length. Chris has also continued to select for flavor, and in 2021 partnered with Chef Terri Terrell (@chefttlivinandlovin) to make harsh selections based on great taste. There is a sweet pea flavor that comes through in some of the plants, but they are all delicious. There are still some off-types that show up, and some variation in branching, stalk color and even the occasional spiny pod, but the variety has stabilized to a point where we’re happy to share it with you. Chris has also renamed his population, Puerto Rico Everblush, to distinguish it from the original genetics and to reflect the direction he has taken this variety, but he also wants to acknowledge that Puerto Evergreen was a great variety from the start and although we don’t know the full history, some great work was obviously done in Puerto Rico."
#okra #puertoricoeverblush #okraseed #seedsaving
1. Moringa
2. Bitter Melon
3. Bambara Bean
4. Taro
Love this time of the year.
Also, aaaahhhhhhhhhhh 🙃
#farming
Today is the day! Many of the ingredients you can taste today were planted around this time last year, harvested in the fall and overwintered so that this group of awesome chefs could turn them into delicious dishes for you all. Trial to Table is an opportunity to showcase biodiversity in our WNC food and farming system - locally sourced yacon, taro, ube and yam don`t often turn up on local menus, but hopefully after today you`ll agree that they should.
I`d love to sell the last small batch of tickets. $25 will get you a taste of 8 small plates, Utopian Seed Project flatbread tasting (ube, taro and dahlia by @luismartinezcreative and @oldnorthfarmwnc), and a drink. Come and celebrate regional and creative food with some incredible chefs. Ticket link via our bio.
TODAY (May 13, starting at 130pm) - bring your Mother!
#ashevillenc #ashevillechefs #farmtotable #trialtotable #regionalfood #yam #ube #yacon #dahlia #taro #food #farming #ashevilleevent
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
