Welcome to the sixth season of Uprising Seeds!

As we put the final touches on the 2012 catalogue on this very sunny Eve of Winter we encourage you to join in the movement and begin with sowing a seed. moving right into Occupy Your Lawn, Occupy the Present, Occupy Art, Music, Language...

Moving right along...

The geography of a seed. When we first started farming we thought it was just a given that in any seed catalog, you just had to look for the cues in the description, count the days to maturity, search through the recollections of past experiences...to figure out what you would be able to grow in our coastal northwest climate. There is much we love about our corner of the country but its long hot, luxurious, summers are...well...a thing of fantasy.  We are always continuing to learn what it takes to grow a successful garden here, but we know with many crops, a lot of that is starting with the right varieties. Of course some of it is also starting with the desire, having faith, nurturing along the plants (sometimes in their misery like the Okra we try to grow year after year after year...) being inventive and saving some seed to plant the next season. Each year we work with these varieties they become better adapted to where we live.

Look inside this catalog and what you’ll find is the history of our northwest successes. The dry beans that matured the year we had frost on our zone’s “first frost date”, Sept 15th. The sweet red watermelons that we harvested in a 50 degree downpour in the middle of a miserably cool wet fall. The cherry tomatoes that went from dry to deluge, to dry, to deluge without cracking. Peppers that turned colors other then just green, eggplant that grew more then pretty flowers, and flowers that bloomed profusely.

This year, we are especially thankful for our amazing network of growers that work hard to grow quality, open-pollinated, and heirloom seed. A group of family farms in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Northern CA. that we feel lucky to work with and all the more rich in knowing. As we are now able to reflect, without the worry and stress of another difficult growing season, we know that without all these dedicated growers open-pollinated seed would fall more to the wayside then it already has. It is through our collective  efforts and dedication that seeds such as these continue along on their journey to your own farms and gardens. Thank you for joining us! Let’s keep the stories unfolding, the seeds relevant to each new place they’re planted, the revolutions alive. They are more then a commodity. They are the gifts of a long and storied relationship between people and plants, and they are the wealth we leave our kids. Occupy Life!

We wish you all an abundant 2012. Thank you for joining us in this joyous uprising!

Crystine, Brian, and Rowan

Huge thanks and gratitude in our 2011/2012 season to: Reeb (“Our Lady of the Fields”),  our fantastic retail partners, and all our volunteers and growers.