The young Star Wars fanatic in me never dreamed that I’d one day live in a world where I could drink a Wookiee spiced latte. God bless Disney and God bless the United States of America.

Time to put some wookiee stank on it!

Bringing in tomatoes. Very pretty

I think I have a little tomato envy.

Future of Ugly Tomato Seeds

Brain trust, assemble.

I need advice on the future of Ugly Tomato Seeds Co. After almost 5 years I’m starting to feel like my heart isn’t in it anymore. I love gardening, I really enjoy being on Tumblr, watching over my own garden, and collecting / sharing vegetable seeds. But the business side of things is just time consuming, not particularly profitable and generally unsatisfying.

Not to paint too grim a picture, especially the last couple years we’ve actually started selling some seeds and continue to build great relationships and partnerships. I just think I’m not cut out to do any single thing for too very long.

So here comes the question. Do I: A. Keep going and hope I come out of this funk. B. Look at selling the business, all remaining seed stocks, name and website. C. Just shut the thing down and not worry about it anymore. D. Look into local partnerships, look for someone to help me out. Or E. Something brilliant Tumblr comes up with.

What do you guys think I should do? If you’re new to this page and wondering what the hell I’m talking about, I recommend looking through the archive and/or visiting our website here.

Anyway, that’s what’s up, I appreciate your input. Thanks!

Reblog for visibility. Thank you peonyandbee for offering thoughts, I really appreciate it.

Heirloom Tomato Trio, by Kendyll Hillegas | 9x12, mixed media on paper

Seed Partners - A Seed Redistribution Bank

When I first started this site, my plan was to basically build myfolia, but since myfolia beat me to the punch and did a nice job, that project never happened.

I have my little seed bank here, but don’t get very many requests for swaps or seed starter packs anymore, as I think people have stuck around for the blogging, and not the seed swapping.

I’d like to get back to doing a little bit of the swapping, and since I’ll be sending my little bank over to flowerfood when I move down to the Gulf, we’ve been brainstorming ways to do that.

I was thinking of doing something called “seed partners,” where gardeners who have no problem purchasing all of their yearly seeds could partner with lower-income gardeners, and divvy up seed packs come planting season (you always get 100+ tomato seeds in a pack, and definitely only need 10; why not send the rest onwards?).

I was also thinking it would be great to pool unused or saved seeds and repackage/redistribute them in following years: basically having a P.O. Box where anyone could send all their unused packets at the end of the planting or harvest season, so that they can benefit someone else in the following year.

I’m open to any suggestions: basically I would like to get more seedswapping happening so I can give flowerfood a coherent project instead of just a few shoeboxes of seeds.

Is there a seed saving or seed-swapping project you would like to see?

What if you organized people by their zone so gardeners in the same zone can talk to each other about what grows best there? I have a hard time picking out varieties that will grow well in my zones summer

I wonder if, instead of a physical box of seeds, someone developed an online database. Those who wish give seeds away would fill out a form with what they have available. That gets loaded to the overall list and then those in need can order off the list. If an order is placed for your seeds, you get the info on who to send them to and mail them out free of charge. That way it’s not a multi-step process, once the platform is developed it’s basically peer-to-peer sharing. Ha ha, torrents for seeds :)

pilotscoutartist: (via Autumn Fitzgerald Quote Typed on Typewriter by … | Favorite Quotes)