Oregon’s Willamette Valley is one of the world’s best places to produce food and crop seed because of our soils and micro-climates. Gardeners here are blessed with the pick of the best from some of the best seed producers in the country – and world.

The seeds produced by some of the companies of this list are organically-grown, open-pollinated and intended for the public domain. Those small-seed company propietors shun the idea of patenting life in the form of seeds. Seeds evolve over generations, adapting to their environment to remain healthy and vigorous. They should serve the people who grow them, not investors who may never have planted a seed.

Sunbow Farm workshops are designed to provide both farmers and gardeners with the skills to produce healthful food on healthy soils, cultivating  independence in the face of difficult economic conditions and the transition from fossil fuel dependance.
Harry MacCormack started Sunbow Farm in Corvallis in 1972, while also teaching at Oregon State University. Forty years later he has retired from OSU but still farms full-time, growing a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains.
To market his produce in the early years, MacCormack co-founded the Corvallis Saturday Market and the Peoples Wednesday …

When my husband, Tim, and I decided to get married, we knew we wanted our wedding to be a celebration of the values that ground us as a couple. Having met in a graduate program in environmental ethics, we strive to live our lives as examples of the change we want to see in the world. We chose a spot in Humboldt County, CA  in the cathedral-like setting of an old-growth redwood forest, where friends and family could camp together under a magnificent canopy. We bought compost-able dishes from EcNow …

This is a good time to settle in with Carol Deppe’s new book, The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times. Gardeners and their soil are resting to regenerate energy and prepare for next season – always sure to be better than any before.