#openpollinatedseeds

It’s been a rainy week here in Ojai, with 5.25 inches falling in the last three days alone. The creek bed near our house is roaring, This has resulted in some solid indoor time, which facilitates both research and planning for the coming year of seed production.

Last year we established a number of perennials on a new land base. These include True Comfrey (Symphytum officinalis), White Dandelion (Taraxacum albidium), White (Salvia apiana), Black (Salvia mellifera), Purple (Salvia leucophylla), and Hummingbird Sages (Salvia spathacea), and Spanish Lavenders (Lavendula stoechas). Some of these have already begun producing seed, and will yield more in the coming year. 

I’m also working more with native plants in our region. Mexican Elderberry (Sambucus nigra L. ssp. Caerulea) trees have recently been planted, and I’ve got some new cuttings of Matilija Poppy (Romneya coulteri, recently released into the seed catalog and pictured above) and California Mugwort (Artemisia douglasiana) with the intention of propagating for seed. The former two species are already in the seed catalog; this will be my second attempt with the latter. I’ve also been wanting to work with Pitcher Sage (Lepechinia fragrans), so will probably pick up some seedlings and work up a seed crop. 

Crops for annual seed production

I’m most excited about working with fava beans (Vicia faba) again. We’ve been sold out of our Crimson Flowered and Purple Negreta varieties (both pictured above) for well over a year, and this has long been a priority to bring back to the catalog. Once the soil in the field isn’t so saturated with water, we will break out the flail mower and lightly till the area where we did tomato and pepper seed production the previous year. 

We already have a new crop of Riverside Onion (Allium cepa) in the ground for seed production. Riverside has been out of stock since last spring, and we’re looking forward to restoring a quality strain of this productive short day yellow storage variety to the catalog.

Above: Riverside Onions growing for for seed in our field. Put them in the ground on October 19th of last year and they’re doing pretty good!

Sasha’s Altai Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is the most productive, fast growing tomato we have in the catalog, and we are nearly sold out of seed. We are also about to introduce a purple-brown cayenne pepper (Capsicum annuum) called Buena Mulata into the catalog, but only have limited quantity of the seed, so reproducing this strain on a larger scale is another summer priority for us.  

Shifting to flowers, we’ve already got Pink Flowered Dandelion (Taraxacum psuedoroseum, pictured above) plants in the ground, and they should begin producing seed in a couple of months. Seed was originally saved from a few plants in 2016, so this will the first larger scale grow out. Russian Mammoth Sunflower (Helianthus annuus) and will be planting this as soon as weather allows.

We found some old Black Hollyhock (Alcea rosea, pictured above) seed in the Mano Farm seed stock – gifted to us by someone in a standard letter envelope with cursive writing – and I grew it out in our home garden in Ashland, Oregon in 2017. I tried to new plants going in Ojai this past spring, but squirrels twice obliterated the entire run of seedlings. Better protection of seed trays and location should finally allow us to add this gorgeous hollyhock to our flower offerings. We had a lot of success with Zinnias (Zinnia elegans) in this past year. One or two varieties to grow (or regrow) – likely the Giant Violet we currently offer and this Lime Queen Strain I’ve been long curious about – will round flowers this year.  Finally, it’s been a couple of years since we’ve done any work with tobacco plants, and Rustica (Nicotiana rustica) is what we’re most close to selling out of, so we will start a new round of plants in mid-spring.

There will undoubtedly be additions and given the idiosyncrasies of climate and environment, subtractions to this list.

I did a lot of organizational work with my personal seed library this year. Along with the folder of bookmarks of plants and running notes I keep for customer requests, it’s exciting to think about all the possibilities of what we could grow this year. But I’ve made a deliberate decision to hold back, and emphasize the consistent availability and restoration of what we already do offer in the seed catalog versus, say, trying to introduce lots of new varieties.

For those of you interested in following the day to day of our seed growing and gardening adventures, do give our farm’s instagram account a follow!