#mypartnerchris

Our signature Speckled Brown Butterbeans are back in stock! This photo is of #mypartnerchris (Chris Bolden Newsome of @sankofacommunityfarm) who grew up shelling these beans with his grandma Newsome. The photo is the inspiration for our logo (by @hilaryannlovetattoos) which adorns our t-shirts and webpage and seed packets. Here’s the description and the story, as told by Chris: The Speckled Brown Butterbean is a plump and creamy bean, with a mild earthy flavor that satisfies the soul on cold winter evenings or on any bright summer day. The beautiful tan bean, when mature, sports mocha colored streaks and freckles that melt into a smooth light brown bean when cooked. Speckled Brown Butterbeans are a traditional delicacy in much of the American South and nowhere more so than in Mississippi. In Mississippi these beans are generally cooked fresh shelled or fresh frozen usually with hamhock or other pork, butter, a chopped onion, garlic and salted when finished. For dried beans, pre-soak in cold water at least 4 hours. In our house, we substitute butter, olive or palm oil, and sweet smoked paprika for a delightful meal. Serve with cornbread or rice. Our Speckled Brown Butterbeans are bush beans, hardy to zone 7 and mature in 65-70 days. Plants set pods when day temperatures are reliably 85 degrees or more. Pole varieties take longer, between 80 to 100 days, depending on consistent hot days. The pods, grass green and thick, are similar in appearance to most Lima beans though they are smaller containing between three to four seeds that ripen from pale green to speckled brown. This species is originally from South America, hence the name “Lima.” In much of the South, these beans are referred to generally as Butterbeans. Each cultural region of the South boasts it’s own favorite though in Mississippi the Speckled Brown reigns over all legumes. This variety, of unknown origins, has been grown and eaten in Mississippi since before God remembers. We received the seed stock in 2017 from Duck and Earl of Shaw, MS. Duck is the sister of Sankofa Farm friend and community elder Ms. Pearl Trotter. #speckledbrownbutterbeans #seedkeeping (at Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram's Garden) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZCVjbMruXA/?utm_medium=tumblr

A few of us from Truelove Seeds got to hang out with Mama Ira Wallace, collective member of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (@southernexposureseed) and godmother of Ujamaa Seeds (@ujamaafarms) at the @pasafarming conference today. Ira and I led a well attended workshop about seed keeping in the time of COVID with an overview of the basics of seed production, and then we gathered at her table and talked about various seed cleaning methods and dreamed up ways to mentor the next generation of seed growers. Here’s Chris, me, Amirah (@sistahseeds), Ira, and her partner Gordon. Grateful for this time together! #seedkeeping #mypartnerchris (at Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square) https://www.instagram.com/p/CZ0loFmNr8F/?utm_medium=tumblr

We have been getting many messages from home gardeners and farmers in the US and Canada who are from Nigeria and who are missing the fresh vegetables of their yards and kitchens back home. Well, we finally have Efo Shoko seeds in the catalog, thanks to a local farmer friend named Dylan DeVlieger who shared this seed with us last year. He grows this variety for one particular farmers market customer from Liberia. We grew it in our high tunnel this year and LOVED it. It’s rising the ranks in our household as one of our top ten favorite greens :) Super excited to provide this seed, especially for diasporic communities longing for their tastes and nourishment of home. Here’s our description: Efo Shoko (sometimes called Lagos Spinach or Nigerian Spinach) is a type of Celosia eaten in soups, stews, and side dishes in parts of Nigeria, Benin, Congo, and Cameroon, as well as in Indonesia and India. Shoko leaves can be all green or more colorful, like this particular strain, and are harvested along with the young stems and flower spikes. A member of the Amaranth family, it is believed to be native to Africa and is easy to grow in climates with suitable soil moisture, attracting few pests or diseases and thriving in heat, unlike many other common greens. #seedkeeping #efoshoko #celosia #shoko #lagosspinach #nigerianspinach :) I certainly can’t speak for #mypartnerchris who is passionate about his greens but this is my guess at our current top favorite cooking greens, not necessarily in this order, but mostly: Turnip Greens Mustard Greens Callaloo (Amaranth) Sweet Potato Greens Molokhia Efo Shoko Spinach Cabbage Collards Malabar Spinach Water Spinach Purslane Cassava Kale https://www.instagram.com/p/CLGL37ogJMp/?igshid=ju0do0p4w0x7

Snapshots from the past week or so: 1. Our friend Kofi has been working with us over the winter between other farm jobs, mostly filling seed packets but also doing some germination testing on our smaller and more challenging seed lots. 2. We got germination papers and also a great how-to demonstration from our friend @karrotclint over FaceTime. 3. Here are some watermelon seeds germinating from ye ole paper towel method. 4. Thanks to the Small Regional Seed Company listserve we learned about and ordered these amazing hand screens for cleaning seeds from Quality Custom Screen Company in Michigan. They are AWESOME. @luterra.ent put together a very helpful list of the best screens for small seed companies. Shown here is the chaff we took off from an already very clean lettuce seed. 5. Julia takes a break from incessant order fulfillment to water some of our perennials that we plan to move to our new farm when the lease is finalized. 6. Here we are again with our sunning turtle friends at @greensgrow. 7. The Greensgrow garden center is going to open in 10 days and is getting stocked up with beautiful plantitas for you! We hope to have our in-person pickup option live by then so you can visit their shop while grabbing your Truelove Seeds order. 8. I gathered fallen White Pine needles on a recent walk in the Wissahickon Park so that I could make more white pine infused vinegar for a delicious dose of vitamin c. 9. Japanese Knotweed seeds on the snow. She’s an invasive I wouldn’t want in my yard, but her roots are also full of medicine. 10. @wrenrene films me leading a seed starting workshop for the @brooklynbotanic Making Brooklyn Bloom conference, which will take place Saturday and Sunday, March 20th and 21st. The whole program looks awesome, including @karwasher of @riseandrootfarm, Kimberly Curtis, and #mypartnerchris of @sankofacommunityfarm. #seedkeeping (at Greensgrow Farms) https://www.instagram.com/p/CL-zPpXAKoa/?igshid=154by5hnu0yey

As fate would have it, Chris was reading me a chapter from Michael Twitty's brilliant book "The Cooking Gene" on how King Cotton shaped this continent, and notably a couple paragraphs about the opportunity it afforded European immigrants working in northern textile mills. We were on our way home from Christmas with my family and the map app thought we'd avoid traffic by driving through Shelton, Connecticut, a town that I'd never been to, and where my great great grandfather Vicenza "James" Lauriello of Salento, Italy lived and worked dying yarn for over 40 years. These textile mills, including the one that was the engine of my hometown of Willimantic, CT, were built to extract wealth from cotton grown in the Cotton Belt, possibly even Mississippi. In the Mississippi Delta, where cotton bolls still tumble across the highways in the fall, Chris's family harvested this plant for countless generations, first enslaved and then as sharecroppers. His father grew up picking cotton as a sharecropper, while living on an Italian family's land. He was paid to shell peas all day not in cash but in nearly rotten fruits - which you may be surprised to hear they were grateful for, since they never tasted these fruits otherwise. This plant, fluffy (and dangerously pointy) like no other, is medicinal, majestic, and more notably the source of the fabric you are wearing right now, has transformed everything about our landscape, economy, culture, and relationships. It is the reason Chris and I know each other, and the reason it was highly unlikely we'd know each other despite our entwined histories in this country. Cotton (well, really the racist systems created to exploit it for centuries) is also the reason we will spend lifetimes tangling and untangling, learning and relearning how to coexist and to love each other well. @thecookinggene

Hill Country Red Okra is said to have originated in the eastern portion of the mostly limestone Edwards Plateau in west-central Texas - also known as Texas Hill Country. This area has a large German population and influence, which meant opposition to seceding from the Union during the Civil War, and also meant introducing the accordion to Tejano music, for example. Okra is probably from West Africa, though some claim Ethiopia as the origin. Many believe enslaved Africans hid okra seeds in their hair on their forced journey across the Atlantic. Certainly, this crop is a taste of home for people of the African Diaspora. I'm growing this crop for seed because it's my partner Chris's favorite, and he's an okra fanatic. #okrafanatic #mypartnerchris #hillcountryredokra #hillcountryred #okra #heirloomokra #abelmoschusesculentus (at Delaware County, Pennsylvania)

Hill Country Red Okra is my partner's favorite okra - and he loves okra so much it is tattooed on his arm and in his email address. This variety is said to have originated in the eastern portion of the mostly limestone Edwards Plateau in west-central Texas - also known as Texas Hill Country. This area has a large German population and influence, which meant opposition to seceding from the Union during the Civil War, and also meant introducing the accordion to Tejano music, for example. Okra is probably from West Africa, though some claim Ethiopia and South Asia as the origin. Many believe enslaved Africans hid okra seeds in their hair on their forced journey across the Atlantic. Certainly, this crop is a taste of home for people of the African and South Asian diasporas. I'm waiting for the pods to turn woody - that is when the seeds will be ripe both for saving seeds AND for making a coffee substitute. #hillcountryred #hillcountryredokra #abelmoschusesculentus #heirloomokra #texasheirloom #seedkeeping #okracoffee #mypartnerchris (at Delaware County, Pennsylvania)

Chris and I both teach for Farm School NYC, and today I was his chauffeur from Philly to his crop management class at Hattie Carthan Herban Farm in Brooklyn. This meant I got to see so many Farm School students who I haven’t seen since my Training of Trainers (ToT) class in December AND I got to be there for the one and only Farmer Yonnette Fleming’s birthday celebration, where I saw a bunch of old friends. So good! Yonnette and I met 11 years ago when we both first went through the Just Food ToT together - and she’s taught me so much, including visioning and persistence. Her dreams for Hattie Carthan Garden and her corner of Bed-Stuy were and are huge, and have come true in beautiful and powerful ways. Check out her food justice work, her healing work, and her farmers market! #mypartnerchris #hattiecarthanherbanfarm #hattiecarthancommunitymarket #hattiecarthancommunitygarden #yonnettefleming #farmeryon #farmschoolnyc (at Hattie Carthan Community Farmers’ Market)