Welcome! A (Re)Introduction, and a Holiday Catalog Preview

by Ken Greene

Handsom hip tomato picker from Giselle Potter's Tiny Tim Tomato pack. Handsome tomato picker. Detail from Giselle Potter's Tiny Tim Tomato pack.

Hey folks! We're excited that new gardeners may be discovering our work thanks to an article in the New York Times by Joy Wang on Thursday. If you are visiting the site for the first time, welcome!

We love growing for seed. Not only do we enjoy all the dirty, sun-kissed, and wind-blown delights of any gardener or farmer, but we also get to steward our favorite varieties through their entire life cycles. Watching a plant transform from a pair of tiny cotyledons, to a robust mature crop, to a towering cascade of yellow blooms and seedpods: pure magic! We think this effort should be undertaken everywhere--not just in California or the arid areas of the Pacific Northwest, where the majority of seed production takes place in our country. That's why we're growing here, at our farm in upstate New York.

Want to know a little bit more about what we do and why we do it? Check out our About Us page.

Part of our mission is cultural: celebrating the importance of seeds through art. Our Art Packs are each designed by a different New York artist. Our packs for the 2011 season are just back from the printers, and we think we've really pushed the seed envelope this year. We've got sixteen new artists, 33 total Art Packs, and some new twists to our unique pack designs. We hope you like them!

Wondering when you can see and get the new Art Packs?

Our pre-order Holiday Catalog is now online. It includes all of the Art Packs plus seedy gift baskets, Seed Library gift memberships, art, and garden wares. More items will be added to the catalog on November 1st, so be sure to check back then, too!

What does pre-order mean? It means you can order early and we will start shipping orders, in the order received, beginning the first of November, all in time for holiday gift giving. (Orders placed from November 1st through December 21st ship within 2 business days.) Our full seed catalog, with over 120 varieties--including 60 locally grown--will be online in January 2011. Make sure you sign up to be on our monthly Seeder's Digest email to get catalog updates, sales, and timely garden tips.

In the meantime:

We'll have all of the packs at the New Amsterdam Market on October 24th.

Ayumi Horie will have her new packs for sale at her annual pottery sale.

Our 3rd annual Pack Art show, with all of the original works for the packs, will be on November 6th at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Art.

If you are in the city, you can see the pack Art show in December at the Horticultural Society of New York.  More info soon.

To see all of our upcoming events, check out the updated events page.