Farm Walks Season 5 Ep 5 - Organic Seed Alliance

This is the Farm Walks podcast brought to you by Tilth alliance and the Washington State University Food Systems Program. I'm your host, Keith Bacon, following in the footsteps of farmer Nicole and everyone on the team who first brought this production to life. The Farm Walks podcast came about when in person farm Walks were put on hold during the pandemic. Those on site visits for farmer to farmer education are now back in action and you can learn more about them at our website, farmwalks.org this episode takes us to the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula, home of the Saltwater Seeds and the Organic Seed alliance, where they're working together to put the power of seed into the hands of growers with organic and open pollinated seeds adapted for local climates. In our interview, we'll learn about practical skills for organic seed production, how research and development in seeds has had a positive impact on farms growing and harvests, and why this work is so vital in securing an equitable, abundant and resilient future of food for consumers and farmers alike.

Hi, I am Ana Galbiz. I am the assistant director of education for the Organic Seed Alliance. My main role here is to support the learning and education experience experience of organic farmers going through learning and practicing their skills in organic seed production.

Hi, I'm Katie Jagger. I am the field research assistant for Organic Seed Alliance. My main role here is to help the field manager with research.

And you have your own seed company as well, correct?

Yes, I also co manage Saltwater Seeds. I split my time between OSA and Saltwater.

Gotcha.

Can I say that I am also a beginner farmer?

Yes.

Thank you. So thank you to the generosity of the people here in the Pacific Northwest. I was able to move to California and get on historic farm here in the area. The name is the Kawamoto Waipala Farm. We got that farm through the work of a whole community but with the support of the Jefferson County Land Trust. And I have been there for almost four years now, three years and a half. We have goats. We are implementing a sustainable organic farming and ranching system there. So that's other thing I do.

And what's the name of that farm?

The historic name is the Kawamoto Farm. You google it, you will see that it's very famous place with historic importance. But we modified a little bit and we put it Kawamoto Huipal Huipala is what the new medicine that we bring to that place.

Awesome. Katie, let's talk a little bit more about Saltwater Seeds. What you grow, is it all organic? Tell me a little bit about that

operation, we grow annual and biannual vegetables, flowers and herbs, culinary and medicinal herbs, with a focus on maritime adapted seeds. So we're trialing and selecting and growing seeds that do well in the Pacific Northwest that I would expect would also do pretty well in other temperate, maritime environments. What does a temperate maritime climate mean? Honestly, the seeds are adapted to our climate here on the Olympic Peninsula, and that's a pretty specific bioregion. We have warm, damp winters and cool, dry summers, making this place an ideal place to grow seeds for brassicas, spinach, beets and chard, and a bunch of other things too. It's not an ideal climate for growing seeds of any warm weather crops, but we do grow these varieties and we specifically select varieties of tomatoes and melons and peppers that are adapted to cold summers.

I think that's super cool because I think that part of this conversation can go there to the importance of local adaptation. Because tomato seed that is able to grow in California, in Colombia, in Mexico, maybe it's not that easy that grows here. Is that correct?

Yeah. In my experience, plants adapt fairly quickly to their local environment. It depends on the crop. But there are so many genetic and epigenetic factors that can allow a plant to adapt fairly well in three years. So if you have a pepper that really doesn't grow that well, if you grow it out for three seasons, chances are there will be enough influences that will allow that pepper to adapt pretty well to the local environment.

Do you do a lot of experimentation or rotation, or do you stick with the known hits?

Good question. We would love to do more experimentation. We also would love to do more collaboration with local farmers. Right now we are somewhat limited because one of my two business partners had a baby. So we've been trying to dial back our production a little bit and dial back our experimentation a little bit this year just because of the unknown of how much joann will be able to work this season. It's a delightful problem to have, and I'm really happy with the way that we've navigated that so far. But a little bit less experimentation this year than usual.

Stick with the plan.

The goal would be to be running as many trials as possible every year,

expanding a little bit more in that topic because I know how important it is, the experimentation when you planted those peppers, when you planted those tomatoes, when you planted that seed. It's very interesting and important to emphasize that you are selecting whatever really grows in this weather to uplift the role of a local adaptation seed growers in

our area, that dovetails really nicely with something that I've been thinking about a lot, which is that a lot of my friends who are farmers, vegetable growers mostly, have begun to rely what seems to me to be more and more on hybrid seed. And I just want to make the point that hybrids cannot be adapted locally. This has shifted a little bit over time. In the past, hybrids were made by crossing one plant with another manually or with brassicas. There would be inbred lines that would be planted next to each other and they would be allowed to cross with spinach and corn. Corn could be detasseled and then you'd have the pollen parent planted next to the seed parent. And with corn that still happens. With spinach, you can rogue the pollen producing plants to create a hybrid. But now CMS is being used more and more. Cytoplasmic male sterility is being used more and more to produce hybrid plants, which means that the seed bearing parent does not produce pollen. This trait generally is inherited maternally or inherited by the seed parent. Which means that most hybrid seeds that are being planted by farmers will not create pollen, making them impossible to save and impossible to locally adapt. And because of this, I would love to promote the idea of working towards putting more resources towards adequate maintenance of open pollinated plants so that farmers have the ability to locally adapt the seeds if they want to do that.

Yeah, that sounds pretty important.

That shows the importance of what we do, that is the education of organic farmers to learn how to do what you're saying, like to be a counterpart of that, of the option of only having hybrids or GMOs or things like that. That by the way, we should not be using that kind of seed, especially the GMO in organic systems. Like the importance of the work that we do.

I want to go back a little bit and talk about the origin of the Organic Seed alliance, which was founded in the wake of two pivotal events. One, an ending a fire that destroyed the Abundant Life Seed foundation and the other, a beginning the National Organic Program rules around organic seed. It's a big question, but can you talk a little bit about these events and how the Organic Seed alliance came to be?

I do think that the NOP seed usage rules would be a great question for our executive director, Kat McCluskey. She is currently on the National Organic Standards Board and she's been involved in seed policy work for a good long time. But my understanding is that the NOP is very interested in encouraging organic seed usage, but there is not an adequate amount of organic seed right now. And so there Are these loopholes that farmers are able to use so that they can buy the seed that they need? There are opposing views. And closing those loopholes, if we were to close the loopholes, it would massively expand the amount of organic seed available on the market. But there would be a lag time between when there is an adequate supply of organic seed and that would be really hard on organic farmers in the meantime before there is enough of a supply of organic seed. And then the other thing is that breeding within organic systems will generate plants that are not dependent on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, that are more weed competitive, that are more adapted to low input organic systems. So this is why I think breeding and selection and seed production within organic systems is important.

I think that is one of the more magic and one of the biggest strength that we have. That is the history. We have a lot of history. That fire that you mentioned is 25 years ago and history is one of my favorite subjects. So I have been asking for the story. So I think that that fire is like a sacred fire. As many of them that I have witnessed in my life that it mark at the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. So I think at that moment OSA stopped being like a commercial seed farm or trying to go that way and just say, okay, we are here to be a nonprofit NGO and we are going to do research and we are going to do education and we are going to do advocacy. So it was like a big change. But I think the 25 years of history that we have put us in this excellent position to do the offering in terms of education that we do. And I'm going to jump a little bit about the top 10. What makes us unique. Like we have an excellent online platform that I didn't create it actually I am only like managing and nurturing and putting there my gift that is to be an educator, a coordinator of groups. But the content has been written and done with the experience of 25 years. But we don't only have the online component, we have the mentorship component. And this is the important thing that top and the taxes that this country pays. Thank you. Like promote that is that our students not only have access to the online content but to the on the field learning with experienced farmers. That network has been cultivated in the past 25 years. If someone wants to do what we are doing now, they would have to be in the field promoting, nurturing, failing, correcting relationships for 25 years. That's what I want to say regarding the History is with us. We have done a lot of mistakes and at the same time, we have done a lot of positive and very useful knowledge and presence for our organized community. I have to say that we have the best intentions always. So we apologize in advance.

That's great. And I definitely want to talk more about the mentorship program in a minute. Let's talk about. So what is the Organic Seed alliance today? Where are you located? I think there's a move afoot. How many acres? What do you produce and offer today?

Our core programs are research, education and advocacy. Ana heads up our educational programming. Jared heads up our research, and our advocacy director just got promoted to be the executive director. So we are currently looking for a new advocacy director.

Okay.

Our educational program focuses on training the next generation of organic seed producers. Our research, my understanding is the research is focused on supporting organic seed growers. That's our main constituent. We go about this by surveying seed producers to ask them what kind of research they need to see happen. And then we go out and look for funding to be able to conduct that research, ideally in collaboration with the seed producers. And I don't know very much about our advocacy program, but it's done a lot.

But your, your collaboration with other farmers and growers is a two way street. You're getting information from them to influence your operations and research, is that right?

Absolutely.

That's what makes us unique. We are like a very feminine energy, which is good because it brings all the participatory dialogue, consensual rhetoric and practice that we do. The fact that Katie and me are here is because you only have two microphones. But we had a big team working for top. For example, we have Susanna, we have Jared, we have Kayla. We honestly, we try our best to work participatory, not only with our stakeholders, but among us, and try to do our work as what we call horizontal in terms of power as possible. We are still immersed in a system, but yeah, I would say that we are very small. For my experience working in the nonprofit systems or organization, we are like 10, 12 people. But we have national scope. So we have a presence pretty much in every single area. And where we don't have a staff, for example, we have a network of allies, let's call it like that. Farmers, researchers, other nonprofits that we've been having that feedback loop inform our programming in terms of education, research and advocacy.

I'm curious, what drew each of you to this kind of work and working with the Organic Seed Alliance?

My background is in farming. I was a Vegetable farmer for many years before I dove fully into seed work. And I was inspired by a conference put on in Massachusetts by the folks from Fedco, an organization called Restore Our Seed. And in particular there was a workshop run by Dr. Raul Robinson on horizontal breeding, working collaboratively with farmers to select for resistance to diseases that they were struggling with. And that work made a ton of sense to me. And through some of the other workshops, I gained enough skills to start doing seed work on that vegetable farm and just fell in love with it. I just absolutely enjoy working with seeds, the selection process, the cleaning process, everything about it. And with osa, I particularly appreciate the connections that I am able to nurture with people, with my colleagues in the seed community through all of the work that I do with osa, I really

love the way how you uplift this idea of relationship. I think that was make us special. I think that is the feminine energy, but I don't know if that's the correct way to call it because we have a lot of masculine energy too in our team. But yes, our relationship is not only online, it's not imaginary. We are in the field, we are in the dialogue. Sometimes they are not easy, but we don't run away from them either. So I really hope that the community can keep looking at that and again forgiving us when we fail and helping us to be better. What brought me here? Look, when I was OSA one time sent me to France to I think the Organic Agriculture World Conference, something like that. It was during COVID now what? Nobody wanted to go because they didn't want to travel. I went and I remember I was there in one of the sessions and a lady just said, you know what? Sid choose you. Like her discourse was that you don't choose to work with Sid, Sid choose you. So I think she's right. I have been an educator in sustainable agriculture, food justice, agroecology for 20 plus years. And six years ago I started translating technical content from English to Spanish, which is excellent service that we do. A lot of our publications are very used in Latin America and in Spanish speaker Europe, which is great. And I started doing it, learning a lot. And suddenly I remember Makeda and Kara told me, you want to work with us? Because they wanted to work with Latino farmers, like in the fields. And they asked me like, how do we do that? And I say, you need to get someone from within, like somebody from the community that had the language, but not only the Spanish, but the cultural language of people that work in the land. And they just told Me like, do you want to do it? And by the way, I say, oh no, I don't think I can. But they told me, okay, we are going to accommodate you at the best of our capacity. Again, this femininity, this dialogue based relationship. And I say yes and I am very glad I did. It has been six beautiful years of challenges, but also good things.

Awesome. Katie, I'm curious, how does your work at OSA influence decision making on your farm business at Saltwater Seeds?

OSA has led a lot of variety trialing in the Pacific Northwest and nationally and breeding work and this has informed a lot of our decisions at Saltwater about which varieties to grow. Also, OSA has led breeding work with farmers that have resulted in other varieties that are locally adapted that we also are working on stewarding in my own

farming experience and I think this is true for many farmers in this country. Like doing organic farming in this country, economically it can be difficult, can be challenging to make all your living and pay all your bills. Especially you have a mortgage on you. You can be out of luck if a season fails or if you don't have the capacity or the markets or whatever. So for my personal experience, Endeavion always helped me to be like multifunctional so I can make a salary doing something that I love and that make in a way viable the first stages of my farming. Endeavion so I could not be more thankful.

Yeah, we both split our time between OSA and our farms and it is very nice to have a stable paycheck.

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you God.

This episode of the Farm Walks podcast was funded by the United States Department of Agriculture Transition to Organic Partnership Program, partnering with nonprofit organizations to provide technical assistance and wraparound support for transitioning and existing organic farmers. The OSA recently launched an online course in organic seed production which was supported in part by the USDA's Transition to Organic Partnership Program or TOP and we've been talking about that a lot this season on Farm Walks. Can you tell me about how the OSA course works?

The first thing that I want to tell you is that this course has been offered by OSA for a long time. Of course we always update it, we always bring new content and all of it, but it's our gift to our community. The amazing thing that happened is that through the collaboration that Makayla, Ben and the people there in Tubbs and here before me have done is that through the mentorship program we are able to deliver that course so it make it again financially possible. And we don't have words to express our gratitude. So what we do, we allow the students that enroll in our courses we allowed to have access to all our content. And because our course is not that something that you do by yourself, we have live sessions and in the live sessions I am there gathering. I see myself like a shepherd with my goats. I see myself like a shepherd with my students. We have to move from point A to point B. And adults, they learn different than kids. So they need guidance, special guidance. And through the mentorship program, they have access to mentors that I paid by top which is great because their time cannot be given for free. They love what they do that much that I think many of them would do it if they could. But get paid is a game changer for them. So we offer any student that comes to our online course, especially the ones that are in the top funded areas. Meaning in the Northwest we have 10 states that include Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming. Still we don't have students in Wyoming. Will be great if someone listening this is in Wyoming and just contact us. We have different states that they are in that region. Those people can have access to those mentors and osa. We provide those contacts, we nurture those contacts and we support that those contacts are as healthy and stable and nurturing and positive as possible.

Aside from some of those regions that you mentioned, can you describe maybe who your ideal applicants for the online course might be?

You don't have to be in those areas to get to the course. The course is open to everyone in all the country. We also receive people in Canaan, Mexico. Why do we do that? Because organic agriculture is based really in diversity. Not only diversity of seeds, not only diversity of crops, but diversity of ideas, diversity of cosmologies, diversity of experiences. So I think any of our students that is immersed in the experience of being talking one on one in a breakout room with a farmer in Hawaii or with a farmer in North Carolina and they are just talking about what they are doing, their challenges and then the lights of being doing agriculture that is very positive. So if you are a practitioner like you are practicing organic agriculture even in the first stages and you want to learn a little bit about organic seed production, this is your course no matter where you are located. If you want to be part of the mentorship program, sadly, but hopefully we are going to work this out, you need to be located in the funded portions of the country that we have. That thing to top and to a lot of work now is not only the Pacific Northwest, but also we have the Southwest So people in California, I think Colorado, Utah, even Hawaii, Alaska, we have a lot of the west pretty much covered. With the help of good work like this, hopefully we're going to be able to cover all the country because we have the capacity, we have the farmers in different places that they would love to be part of this. Organic farmers that are practicing that they can have access to gardens, that they can do their crop tracking project, grow seed, like hands on experience. Those are our people.

What about the mentors? What do you look for in a mentor and what are the expectations around their role?

The mentors, they need to be located in the areas that are funded, Pacific Northwest and Southwest. That is in the top webpage. They need to be at least three years organic certified because remember that this TOP is transition partnership to organic systems. Going toward organic certification is one of the goals of the program. So they need to be organic certified so they can be giving advice or giving encouragement to the students. I wanted to do it, wanting to do it, like wanting to teach, to share their craft with other people. I think that those are the male standards for the mentors.

Has TOP been able to recruit enough mentors? Do you need more mentors?

We always need. Look, this is how it works, at least for our program. Because our program is so focused in seed. The first word in the mentors is osa. OSA is okay. We have this in our network in, I don't know, in each state. Thank you to our 25 years of presence in the field. We have a network of people in California, in the Pacific north, so those are top one. If for some reason we don't get a mentor for a student there, then top. They have a long list of organic producers. Even if they are not focused in organic seed production, only by being organic certified producers, they can be the mentors. If you are an organic certified farmer and you want to be part of this movement of teaching your craft to the crowds, please contact us. But if you are an organic seed producer and you want to be here, especially if you are from the southwest portion of this country, California, Texas, 18, Arizona, New Mexico, please contact me at anadseadalliance.org because we are recruiting people for our new cohort that begins in May.

Great farmers learn how to farm from other farmers. Maybe it's through watching YouTube videos, most likely it's by working on farms, but maybe it's through a mentorship program. I think this mentorship program is amazing and I really hope that someone can figure out a way to continue funding it. And for me it's been just wonderful. It has been challenging. My mentee lives in Portland, Oregon, and I'm on the Olympic Peninsula. There's a four hour distance between us and that has been difficult, but it's been extraordinarily wonderful for me and I'm sure that it's been great for my mentee as well. I think that she's been able to learn how to value her time a little bit better. And we're starting to get into some of the more technical aspects of seed saving and cleaning. But for me, it's just been delightful to see someone come at this work from a different perspective without any of the ideas that I bring to it of, oh, you, you can't do this here, you can't do that there, or you need to sell things this way. She's coming at it from a completely new perspective and I'm learning so much from her about, about sharing, about community, about collaboration, just different ways of approaching the work, and it's just wonderful.

That's fantastic. Would most farmers make ideal seed stewards or are there specific kinds or regions that you think would generally work the best?

I know that a lot of farmers are too busy to do seed work. There's a lot of pressure, financial pressure on farmers. Ideally, there would be enough farmers doing this work everywhere. I think that right now there are quite a few people doing seed work in the Willamette Valley, in Skagit, out here on the peninsula, which are ideal regions for growing certain crops. But there are climatic challenges in a lot of other regions that make it more difficult.

Right.

And it's very important that seeds continue to be adapted to all of those regions, despite the difficulties. It's something that we think about and talk about a lot here at.

I honestly think that to be a seed farmer, you have to have the desire, once you have the desire and the willingness to do it, I think any farmer can do it conventional or organic, for sure. And a lot of conventional farmers, they also work in seed. Seed is the key that opens the food system. So if you want to be working the food system, you must have access to seed.

Right.

Some people that are farming, they understand the importance of taking back that power to your hands, because otherwise you are going to be always relying in a corporation, in a big business, in a big farmer, in another farmer to source your seed, which is not necessarily bad. Actually. There are places, for example, like Cuba, that they have a strong organic food systems, that they have specialized farmers. You know, they have specialized farmers for seed, they have specialized farmers for compost they have specialized farmers for bioproducts to manage their farms. The thing is that this thing is at the regional level, so it's not expecting that someone from China is going to be sending your thing. You are specialized to serve your own community.

So I guess sustainability and self reliance would be a good reason for a farmer to learn about becoming a seed steward, even if they're not in the business of growing seeds.

I was a vegetable farmer for many years and seed work was integrated into that farm and I saw many benefits. I realized that I said earlier that a lot of farmers are not going to do seed work, but I would encourage people to do it. Even if you don't do it well, the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. The more practice you'll get, the more you'll understand the nuances of the different crops and how to properly maintain them. But as a CSA farmer, I saw the benefits of improved yields immediately. With some crops, peppers, cucumbers, watermelons, immediately. With some crops, the benefit was in just having an excess of seed. You know, we weren't paying for the seed. We also would be very easily able to save a pound of arugula seed, a pound of red Russian kale seed, which would allow us to direct sow those things, saving a large amount of time and labor in starting seeds in the greenhouse, watering them, transplanting them. We were pretty quickly able to select for disease resistance, vigor, cold hardiness in a handful of crops. That seed vigor allowed us to do a better job with weed maintenance, weed control and maintenance, disease resistance helped us do a little bit of adaptation of tomatoes against late blight disease. And it just improved our bottom line across the board.

It sounds like in every sector or field, if you will.

Yeah. And I know that this isn't going to be for everyone, but it's absolutely improved our farm.

I want to add to that again, if for some reason you cannot do it, it's okay. You will be giving business to seed farmers like Katie or other ones. And at the same time, if you do it, if you decide to do that job in your production, like you are not only going for the self reliance thing, that is amazing, but also for this increasing of the resiliency. Because now with climate variation, we should not be calling climate change, I don't know. But with this climatic unpredictability, the farmers that are able to select what is working for them at the local level, they are a step ahead. I think they potentially can be a step ahead. For other systems, they are more Vulnerable even if they are larger, if you have a big field of the same monocrop, if that crop is susceptible to the drought or to the disease that climate variability bring to your area, you're done.

So definitely some effort and learning and education to go into this. But the payoffs, the results can make a big impact on your business.

We went from not being able to grow watermelons at all to harvesting just truckloads and truckloads of them. Same with peppers. We weren't able to harvest ripe peppers when we first started and then we were just able to harvest crates and crates of delicious, beautiful peppers.

And I would add to that because I hope that this thing is listen only for producers, but also for consumers like you as a consumer in your farm. We need to reactivate the farmer market movement. We need to reactivate the eat local thing, the support your local farmer. Because yes, this can be amazing in terms of productivity and resiliency, but we cannot hit the markets and put that in money. That make us very vulnerable to the economic and financial forces that all of us, we are exposed now. So we definitely need to translate that in well being for the farm. That thing is well being for the local community, for the people eating the food. But definitely needs to go to the farm.

There's a lot of great work happening here on the OSA side, the farming side, you both bring a lot of experience and passion to what you're doing. What is it that drives you the most and that gets you back up and at it every day?

Probably the people that I work with. Yeah, I think so. Also the seeds. Constantly running germ tests. Wake up in the morning and I count them. I really love the stewardship of the plants. The interaction year to year, making sure that the tomatoes still taste good and are crack resistant and the cabbages don't have black leg and the carrots are being selected for flavor and texture. That cycle, that annual cycle of just interacting with the plants and making sure that they're being properly cared for. I think that's what really drives me.

If you have any anti cracking tomato tips for me, please?

I mean, you know they'll crack more if you water them irregularly. Yeah, or over water them.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Ana, what about you? What drives you and gets you going?

This is difficult. When I talk, I try my best to be as honest as possible. So this is a job and I come for a salary. What I value of this is that it allow me to make a salary. It's not like a huge salary, it's not like a corporate America salary, but it's a dignifying salary doing something that I consider useful and correct. So I think that is the big value of what attract me to keep working and building up with this team, something that all of us in this society needs, that is to make a living, make a salary in a dignifying way, using correctly our time. This is for me in terms of the work. What I'm doing is, look, I come from Latin America, I'm Colombian. I have been studying with close detail this society for the past 20 years. I'm very curious and I really think that the United States really needs this. This country has been very detached for the people. You know, with the green revolution, with the pesticide and the conventional agricultural revolution, a lot of people have to go to the city. We disconnect from where is to be part of the cycles of Earth, be part of the production of our food. We became a little bit of parasites for society, bringing everything from other places because we can pay for it. So I think that this returning to land in a positive way, in a way that honor diversity at all levels, that honor femininity. I have been talking about that from the beginning. A value system based on dialogue, consent, agreement, that your needs are fulfilled. And my needs are fulfilled too. And not just that, me by violence, take whatever I need. That balance is so needed. So I love and I am very thankful through my work, being, contributing to at least bring that to the discussion, to the dialogue. Hey, can we do it in a different way? And that's how my classes go. That's how my relationship, even with the team goes. And again, I will repeat this all the podcast we have failed, but our intention is good, so we apologize in advance.

If you're not making mistakes, you're not learning, right?

Yeah. If you are not making mistakes, it's because you are not doing nothing.

All right, are you ready to have a little fun?

Yeah.

All right. Okay. We do this little segment called barnstorming. And I'm going to give you two options and you're going to just pick one and you can tell me in a sentence or two why you picked that one. Does that make sense this time? Are you ready to barnstorm with me?

Let's do the mistake.

Okay. Barnstorming. Flowers or herbs?

Flowers.

Herbs.

All right, Our first difference. Flowers. Herbs. Why did you pick what you picked?

We sell a lot of flower seed. There's a lot of interest and demand in them. It's a huge learning curve. For me, coming from a vegetable background and it has been a wild world to learn about.

Are you liking the challenge of it or.

Absolutely. I love a challenge.

For me, the herbs are mainly because I told you I manage animals. And in order to have animals organic managed, you need to have a lot of herbal medicine for them to warm them, to keep their immune system up. And yeah, herbs are medicine and I use them a lot.

So a very practical reason for you there. That makes sense. Winter squash or zucchini?

Zucchini. I feel like I've been struggling to adequately maintain my winter squash lately. The plants are very big and it makes it hard to know which fruits are coming from which plants. I need some more advice about how to properly maintain squash.

Zucchini is an old friend. No issues there.

I feel a little more confident with zucchini.

Yeah, I know you want us to choose because it's part of the game. I would say both, because I buy pretty much in everything.

You can't choose between them.

Yeah.

The main thing is that both of them can grow like dry farm. I farm, by the way. Everything we grow has to be dry farm because we don't have water. Right. For agriculture. Both of them, they have performed beautifully in dry farming systems. So I like them both.

Sure. Here's another one that you might like both of. Carrots or beets?

Carrots.

Yeah, carrots.

Carrots across the board, Bill. Beet lovers here.

I love working with carrots. They're so beautiful. There are so many colors.

And you mentioned earlier you have a taste testing process with your carrots. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah, carrots are great. You can dig them up, cut them open, taste them, and then put them back in the ground and save seed from them.

Wow.

So, yeah, you want to make sure you leave at least 4 inches of the root, the top of the root with the apical meristem attached so that the plant can regrow. But it's a fun way to make flavor selections.

Yeah. Sneak preview.

Can I say one?

Yes.

And look, I definitely prefer like astronomically the carrots, not the beets. I can eat the beets, but they like the carrots. But one of the things that I prefer carrots is because here in Organic Seed Alliance, I have learned a lot of it through the research project in breeding with carrots that Makayla, our amazing Makayla, has been leading and co working and co creating with the team for many years now. I don't know how many years, but you guys have been working on that for A long time. So mainly for that, I have learned a lot about it and it linked my heart and my body to this very beloved coworker.

Very sweet. Thanks for sharing that. Katie, you mentioned watermelon earlier. Watermelon or cantaloupe?

Cantaloupe's a lot easier to grow here. We can actually grow it outside. Watermelon requires a greenhouse in the Pacific Northwest, I think.

Yeah. I am learning with Mrs. Carol Depe when I am reading her bibliography that they have some seed that they grow in Oregon with watermelon. To be honest, I prefer watermelon in Hawaii or Colombia. In the beach.

Nice. Yeah, I like your style. Sunflowers or nasturtium? What?

What is the second option?

Nasturtium. The little edible, like there's orange.

Oh, yeah, I know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Capuchina, we call it in Spanish. Okay. What do you prefer?

I'm gonna go with sunflowers. Needle.

Fair enough. Sweet peas or poppies?

Sweet peas. Sweet peas are such a diva.

Yeah.

But they sure are beautiful. They smell amazing. I love growing them.

Poppies.

Poppies. Mondays or Fridays?

Fridays.

Mondays.

Yeah. But why did you choose what you chose?

My husband works four times and we often do fun things on Fridays.

Monday, because the next one is Tuesday and I have therapy Tuesday. I love my therapy. It's what make me functional.

That's important.

So that's the real truth.

The catalog that you can't wait to see in your mailbox or email.

I do like seeing other seed companies seed catalogs.

See what the competition is up to.

Yeah.

Or to be honest, I try to consume as local as possible. So I don't have any obsession with catalogs that come to me. But yep, that's my answer.

Okay.

Obsession with it.

The tool. You couldn't live without the tool.

So sad to say this because I really want to detox from these addictions, but I could not live without the cell phone. Especially when you live in a farm. Like you are far from everyone. So it's like a lifeline to be in contact with people, to do the meetings and to be able to have that lifestyle.

Absolutely.

So computer and cell phone. Sorry.

Okay. I'm gonna go with a winnow wizard.

Okay. I like you.

That is incredible. Seed cleaning tool invented by Mark Luteterra. You could buy it from Luteterra Enterprises. It is an essential seed cleaning tool for small scale seed producers.

The winnow wizard.

Positive.

Fantastic.

It is an incredible tool. Thanks, Mark.

Your favorite time off activity?

Getting into the alpine to see the

alpine wildflowers I have many. The one that I can share here I like very much. When I finish like washing dishes and everything, and I tell my dog to go upstairs and say, hey baby, let's go upstairs. And he start moving like he's really happy. That's one of my favorite moments of the day.

That's so sweet.

It's true.

What kind of dog?

They call him American Terry. I love an American Terry.

It happens. What do you love the most about this area?

The peninsula, the mountains and the proximity to the saltwater.

Yeah. Having it both mountains and ocean.

Incredible.

Yeah, it's pretty great.

Look again. I told you I have many kingdoms. I have developed a whole life in Latin America, Colombia, Mexico and in California from here. I love the people. I really hope that can be listened enough. Like Washington and the Pacific Northwest gave me an opportunity that no California and no other places have given to me, that is have stable access to land. And I honestly think that it happened because of the people. A lot of people, they want to embody and crystallize in fact what they have in theory and that maybe it's not unique only from here, but this is where I found it.

Yeah. Awesome. Winter, spring, summer or fall?

I'm going to go with fall. When all of the seeds ripen.

Oh, that must be a busy time for you, right? You like to be busy.

I like harvesting and cleaning seeds.

Yeah. And using your winnow wizard.

We will try to look. I am tropical. I cannot deny that thing. So for me, this interface between spring and summer is bliss.

Yeah, it's pretty magical up here for that last one. The start of a perfect day.

A warm beverage and a little bit of chocolate.

Are you a dark chocolate or a milk chocolate person?

The darker the better.

Same here.

For me, the beginning of a perfect day is when I'm moving my goats from the barn to wherever they're going to grass that day. And nobody run away. Everyone go in line and just go to where I tell them I need them to go. That's perfect.

Beginning of the day, keeping your goats in line. No goat escapes for the day. How often do you have a perfect day?

It depends. At the beginning of my shepherd career, it was rare because they know where they need to run away. If I am in rush for a meeting, if I have to come here to do the podcast or whatever, they know it. They know it really, so they run. But now that I am more experienced, I. I think I am doing it better.

Maybe the goats are checking your cell phone and seeing your calendar.

No, they are more they are higher technology. They check my hormones, my smell, my levels of anxiety.

Thank you both so much, Katie and Anna, for spending all this time talking with us on the Farm Walks podcast. Keep up the amazing work that you're doing here and we will have all your information information in the show Notes so that mentors and mentees can reach out to you and learn more about your programs. Thank you again so much for your time today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Anna and Katie for having me up to their corner of Jefferson county for our great chat and a walk around their current farming location. For more information about the Organic Seed alliance, look them up online@seedalliance.org and you'll find Katie's saltwater seeds business@saltwaterseeds.com and both those links are in our Show Notes for this episode and that's it for this episode of Farm Walks. If you like what you heard, you can rate, review and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. And be sure to share this episode with someone you love or even just like. For transcripts, show notes, episodes, evaluation and more information, check out our website@farmwalks.org behind the scenes logistics and Wrangling by Brammy Pugh and Ray Russell of Tilth alliance and Kate Smith of WSU Food Systems Field recordings and audio engineering by Made with Bacon Productions. I'm Keith Bacon. We'll see you out there. Thanks for listening.