Gathering Together Farm
WILD GARDEN SEED is part of the Organic Integrity of GTF along with a complete line of fresh market vegetables grown on 35 acres for farmers markets, local food co-ops, restaurants, and wholesale. The farm employs more than a dozen people during the growing season, and we all enjoy the workday tradition of Farm Lunch, when we gather to eat together the food we grow, prepared by farm owners John Eveland and Sally Brewer.
Seedfolks Frank and Karen Morton of Shoulder to Shoulder Farm co-ordinate the seed production program within the overall farm system, and manage harvest, cleaning, and marketing of seed crops with a lot of help from their sons, Taj and Kit. Breeding new varieties for organic farmers is part of the Morton?s work on their own farm, and Wild Garden Seed from Gathering Together Farm brings their creative effort into the public domain seed marketplace.
Farm managers Jolene Jebbia and Rodrigo Garcia are the ever-present eyes and attending minds from the greenhouse to the fields to the barn and markets. They see and touch it all; from sowing through weeding to washing and selling the produce, to knowing the catalogs, the standards of excellence in varieties, the state of the crops in the field, and where the crew is working when.
The Crew works incredibly hard on this farm. One hears a lot of español, sees a lot of fast work done with a practiced pace by many hands. Most of the crew has worked at GTF for years, but every season brings young hands that want a try at this farming thing. John and Sally are always building their dream team.
Farm fertility is based on cover crops and hot-composted ley crops, manures, and leaves, leaves, leaves. Worm castings from leaves and low grade produce are used for the greenhouse mix and compost tea. Occasionally, the fields get a fresh layer of winter flood silt from the feisty little Marys River.
Our goals as farm-based seedspeople is to make our farms function better by the added crop- and bio-diversity that seed growing brings, and to share our work in breeding and crop improvement with other farmers like ourselves.
Seed saving and adaptive selection have been part of the farmer's rights and responsibilities since the emergence of agriculture. As practitioners of this old art, organic farmers can reclaim the power to forge crops that better fit their land, their systems, and their imaginations. Wild Garden Seed is working with farmers, researchers, and other seed companies to co-create an organic seed system that provides quality seed, varietal diversity, and superior genetics.
ECOLOGICAL
CROP IMPROVEMENT
For and By Farmers
Organic Farming Research Foundation has funded two years of Lettuce study at the on-farm GTF Disease Nursery, aka 'Hells Half-Acre'.
The purpose of the ongoing study is to:
- Evaluate varietal response to uniform pressure by pathogens and stress.
- Identify commercial, heirloom, and original B strains with highest levels of multigene resistance to disorders.
- Begin crosses and challenged selection from these superior parents. Information and varieties derived from this work will be in the public domain.
Improved genetic stocks from year 1 of the study are already represented in this catalog. '03 Lettuce crops derived from our reselection-under-challenge strategy include; Blushed Butter Oak, Brown Golding, Devils Tongue, Dark Green Romaine, Emerald Oak, Hyper Red Rumple Wave, Iceberg, Jack Ice, Outredgeous, and Winter Density.
Other varieties descended from hard times include; Great Green CHERVIL, Wild Garden CHICORY, our famous Lacinato, White Russian KALEs, Antares, Kweik, Oaky Red Splash LETTUCEs, Red Head QUINOA, and Survivor PARSLEY.
|
