July Newsletter - Our gardens are filled with wonder

Working with seeds is a constant reminder of the wonders in this world. From richly colored flint and dent corn kernels to spooning out the seeds of an irresistibly fragrant muskmelon, seeds connect us to a sense of discovery and awe that cannot be had anywhere else but here in our garden. And that sense of discovery and awe in the garden extends beyond seeds and the life plants live. Animals and insects depend upon plants to grow and thrive, and together they create the buzzing, humming, colorful, and mysterious world humans witness, which is unlike anything else we can experience. Yet, often, agriculture excludes the conditions necessary for this kind of thriving to occur, creating an experience that is silent and dreary. 

I think we are all familiar with the image of monocropped fields, whether it is corn, cabbage, or something else, in which there is a sea of a single crop without intercrop diversity or a weed in sight. With all the intensive tillage, herbicides, plastics, or other mechanisms to create a desolate landscape, these spaces allow for a very narrow set of life, that of the crop and perhaps bacteria. These fields are, in essence, dead. In contrast, farming in polyculture goes beyond plant diversity. It contributes to the greater life thread of animals that can live in and around the farmed area, which in turn contributes to an enriched experience of the world through discovery and wonderment. From these places, not only are our bodies fed, but the entirety of our being. 

This is an adapted excerpt from our newest blog post, which can be read here. 

Third year of funding from Clif Family Foundation

Going to Seed is excited to announce our 3rd year of funding from Clif Family Foundation for the Farmer Support Program! This award totals $25,000 and will allow us to help continuing and new farmers make the change to growing diverse, resilient crops that are meaningful to their communities. 

More printed seed-saving guides are coming this winter!

The Foundation for Innovation and Sustainability is supporting our printed crop guide project that supplied schools, seed libraries, and prison gardens with compact 'zines'.  These zines explain how to grow and save seeds of a crop, and include a packet of local seeds where possible. With this 3rd-year grant, we will improve and expand our printed crop guide project, putting more zines into more hands nationwide. You can enjoy leafing through some virtual copies here.

We are looking for volunteer photographers!

Going to Seed now has an open source photo library, located under the ‘Community’ menu of goingtoseed.org. If you enjoy taking photos and don’t mind sharing, check out the categories and upload your photos to the corresponding albums. Photos in this library will help us at Going to Seed to create our newsletters and media posts. Thank you in advance for helping us spread the word on Adaptation Gardening!

The photos in these albums are open source and available for anyone to use. Add to the collection or download copies for your own use. By adding your photos, you give others permission to use them without attribution.

Seed Savers Exchange 50th Anniversary Conference

SSE still has open registration for their 50th Anniversary Conference in Decorah, Iowa, this August! There will be speakers, workshops, farm tours, and much more. You can find more information to register here and the schedule here. Some of the team at Going to Seed will be attending, and we hope to see you there. 

Community Posts

2025 GTS Mix Grow-outs

Did you plant any GTS mixes this year? If so, we’d love to see how they are growing. There are threads in the community for each mix, and members are sharing their progress. Here are a few quick links for some of the grow-outs: 

Radishes

Muskmelons

Promiscuous Tomatoes

Okra

Corn

You can find more grow-out threads here. 

As we begin to notice the passing of summer, we hope your gardens are thriving with life and abundance for all. 

Lowell + GTS