Siskiyou Seeds Vision

Siskiyou Seed is a bioregional seed bank and seed source for gardeners and small farmers. Our vision is to serve as a hub to connect seed growers, gardeners and farmers in a mutually beneficial relationship to support small-scale agriculture in Southern Oregon. We grow and distribute certified organic, open pollinated seeds through seed racks, a catalog and the Internet / mail order. Our goal is to produce most of the seed on our farm and field we manage in Southern Oregon’s Applegate valley. We also work with local organic seed growers to round out a diverse offering. Varieties that are not successful seed crops here (due to climate or cross-pollination issues, such as Spinach or Carrots) are sourced from outstanding, organic growers in the Pacific Northwest.

We have arrived at this point after 14 years of growing certified organic seed for many national scale mail order seed companies, which we continue to do. After SOW Organic Seeds closed shop in 2007 after the untimely death of pioneering seedsman, Alan Vanet we recognized that our bioregion was left lacking a cohesive seed bank. Although we are blessed with abundant summer sun here in the “banana belt of southern Oregon”, the Siskiyous can be a challenging place to garden with our winter rainforest, summer desert climate of harsh extremes. Uniquely situated to serve our local community we recognized an opportunity to try and fill this important niche and will be offering our seeds nationally through our web site , and a catalog, both of which will be available after 2/1/10.

There is tremendous opportunity for the renaissance of the bioregional seedsman/woman to select and breed varieties for organic agriculture. I am committed to the notion that well-selected, open-pollinated seeds can outperform commercially available hybrids. Through focusing on this crucial work, we can cooperate with gardeners and farmers to address the agronomic challenges that we will all face as climate change shifts microclimates in North America. Population breeding with special attention to horizontal resistance will hopefully alleviate the hardships growers experience with plant diseases, pests and climatic stress.

Careful attention to plant selection for seed saving can contribute to the improvement of important traits such as disease resistance, pest tolerance, climate adaptation, flavor and nutrition. Domestication is not an endpoint. Rather it is a relationship that is ongoing and can go in different directions. We are much more concerned with breeding plants that will foster healthy food for people, rather than traits such as ship-ability and shelf life. When we consider the concept of “food security” I find it logical that “seed security” should receive equal attention especially considering the threats of genetic engineering and the corporate consolidation of the seed industry. Bioregional seed banks and distribution networks will emerge as one of the more important stores of wealth in the future. Anyone want to buy futures in seeds? Let’s get planting!


Stay tuned for more developments and please check out our pending web site at www.siskiyouseeds.com to follow the seed saga and get your hands on some fresh seed! Peace to you and yours.

Germination & the Forces of Spring

Germination – The Awakening of the Seed

April 1st, 2009

The lengthening the day brings about profound changes in the natural world. Many natural processes either initiate or accelerate. In the northern hemisphere at our latitude (43 degrees) the time around February 1st, variably known as Candle mass, or Imbolc, or groundhogs’ day depending on your cultural persuasion heralds an awakening of the nature spirits which animate the growing world. The spiritual forces, which animate the plant world, have lain largely dormant since the yellowing of the leaves and leaf fall in autumn. Now we witness the remarkable rebirth known as spring or Easter. We are fortunate to perceive the swelling and flowering of buds, the unfurling of leaves, the sprouting of seeds and the untold billions of births which take place as the sun waxes higher in the sky with each day. We too are affected by this turn in the rhythm of the year. It is important for us to align our own soul’s hope, courage and sense of purpose with that which is occurring in the rest of the created world, Because, we too have a deep soul need to emerge from the darkness of winter and make positive contributions to the web of life.

As farmers and gardeners we are extremely fortunate to be able to plant seeds and share in this cycle. We hold the magic of the germination process in our heart and mind as we plant seeds and tend the germinating embryo, encouraging growth and reproduction. I feel that we must also shoulder the responsibility of communicating how important this process is for all of humankind and the world at large. When we consider how extensive humanities’ reach has become to manipulate the surface of the Earth, we must accept that we are the stewards of this beautiful planet. What an opportunity. Do we want to live in a peaceful relationship with the other 100 million other species we share the planet with, or continue with top down destructive domination? Those who tend the fields and forests of the Earth have a unique, yet imposing responsibility to not only do this critical work, but also to articulate how tenuous the health of the natural systems which sustain us are at this time. Just as the Lorax spoke for the trees in Dr. Seuss seminal classic, the Lorax, growers of food must speak up for the seed at this pivotal time in human history when genetic engineering is making rapid inroads into the cornerstones of the biology of the planet.

Is simply planting seeds, growing seeds and distributing them enough? Can we rely on non-profits, seed companies, NGO’s, the UN, or the USDA to adequately represent and respect the spiritual forces of growth and reproduction upon which all life depends? This is a challenging question with potentially disturbing consequences. Fear aside, who is better qualified to articulate concerns over genetically engineered seeds and other threats to seed freedom than those whose livelihood and life forces are already aligned with seeds and the plant world? As the fervor over the local foods movement builds more steam, I encourage all farmers and gardeners to engage in constructive dialogue with our fellow world community members. I am tremendously inspired by the rapid changes in attitude occurring among the general populace with regards to valuing agriculture and connections with farmers. Just as the plight of salmon here in the Pacific Northwest has fostered people to adopt the paradigm of thinking about watersheds, we need to usher in an understanding of “food sheds”, “pollen sheds” and bioregional responsibility for maintaining the integrity of these systems.

The concept of pollen sheds has hit my backyard recently, as I had to nervously await the results of a purity test to determine if a crop of Swiss chard seed I was trying to sell was free from contamination from genetically modified “Round-Up ready” sugar beet pollen. Fortunately the test showed up negative and I was able to sell the seed, but I had to pay a few hundred dollars and submit a 1-pound sample for the test. Did Monsanto cover these costs, or would they reimburse me if my certified organic seed were rendered unsellable as a result of the technology? No, they did not, nor would I hold my breath awaiting a cordial response from them. Unfortunately, organic and biodynamic agriculture will be presented with these challenging quandaries with increasing frequency. There is a big push to develop SW Oregon’s Rogue River valley where I live as a prime area for canola seed production for Biofuels. This follows a failed attempt in Oregon’s Willamette valley to do likewise. Nearly all Biofuels canola is planted to Monsanto’s, Round-up Ready varieties. If this goes through, all of the Brassica rapa varieties (Tatsoi, Mitzuna, turnips, Pac Chois and other Chinese cabbages) for which we and other seed growers produce seed for will be threatened with GMO contamination, necessitating more costly purity testing and restricting the viability of our farm systems. Do we cower back from this threat and retreat to GMO free watersheds? Or do we stop growing crops, which have potential of crossing? Do we say, “nothing can be done”, and let someone else fill David’s shoes (or sandals) to challenge Goliath? I would like to stand up for the seed and I am confident that I am not alone. But let us use the language and tactics of positivity in creating sustainable seed systems in order to appeal to the more enlightened element of the human psyche.

I propose and am actively working on creating regional seed producing hubs, which network with one another like spokes of a wheel. In order to maintain the viability of small scale integrated biodynamic & organic farms we must work together to share experience, resources, tools and training. Through the newly incorporated Family Farmers Seed Cooperative (an outgrowth of the Organic Seed Alliance), we are developing bioregional hubs in SW Oregon, Colorado (near Boulder/Longmont), NW Washington (near Port Townsend and the Skagit valley), North Dakota, Idaho, and also in Oregon’s Willamette valley. Within these hubs, seed growers can share seed harvesting and cleaning equipment; pool resources for performing in-house germination tests, print labels for packaging and participate in plant breeding/improvement seminars and field days. At this point in time we need many more growers of organic seed, many of whom will probably already be farming fresh market vegetables among other things. How do we train and equip these new seed growers to supply the huge gap between organic seed supply and demand? These bioregional seed hubs will be a big step in the right direction. If we can include established growers of fresh market produce in the process we can ascertain their needs for variety improvement and work towards breeding and selecting to address their concerns and they can give us realistic feedback as to how to achieve these goals.

I am particularly excited about a new model for seed production. I recently was able to develop a relationship with an established medium scale organic farm in the Rogue Valley. Steve and Suzie Fry have been growing certified organic flowers, vegetables and vegetable starts for 20 years and now farm nearly 80 acres. They are acutely aware of the strengths and shortcomings of many of the available varieties of seed currently available. They also buy and use a lot of seed on 80 acres. Yet, the rigors of their system overrule the idea of starting a seed production aspect to their operation themselves. That’s where the relationship with an experienced seed grower can create multiple beneficial outcomes. For instance, they had 18,000 row feet of parsley, which had over wintered and we were able to walk the rows and discuss what traits are desirable for producing healthy plants in quantity. That many plants would be a lot of seed, but we can save 1,500 plants that demonstrated the best vigor, resistance to yellowing and crown rot and let them mature to seed. Meanwhile they can still fill boxes for wholesale produce sale. They are skilled at the vegetative growing aspect, and I can come in with my crew for the seed selection, harvest, and cleaning aspects, for which my operation is already configured. They get improved seed, have a big insectary hedgerow as all that parsley flowers (normally it would be tilled under), we sell some seed and pay some bills and together move closer towards a sustainable seed system. In cooperation we write a good story.

I would like to see more of these types of relationships sprout and flourish. I am partnering with Fry Family Farms to grow a large crop of Swiss chard in an area where the potential for crossing with GMO sugar beet exists. So, not only are we producing improved seed, but also creating a compelling argument for restricting the planting of GMO crops within established seed growing region. This is not merely an environmental issue, it also has elements of economics, and social/cultural ramifications. Our hope is to align ourselves with the concepts laid out in Rudolf Steiner’s threefold social order in order to appeal to our larger community to develop reasonable agreements that respect our personal freedoms. May your seeds sprout vigorously and inspire you with renewed creativity at thriving amidst challenging times!



Don Tipping and his family farm in SW Oregon’s Siskiyou mountains at Seven Seeds Farm. They grow vegetables, herbs, sheep, poultry, seed and cooperate with other farmers to manage a CSA. Their seed is sold by Turtle Tree Seed, Johnny’s, Fedco, Renee’s, High Mowing Seed, Wood Prairie Farm, Seeds of Change and Uprising Seeds. This is their first year selling seed directly through their own local seed company, Siskiyou Seed . I welcome input about any of these ideas, email at sevenseedsfarm@yahoo.com, or see blog with more articles at www.biodynamicseeds.blogspot.com

Farm as an Organism

Farm As An Organism
February 15th, 2007

Ideally a farm should function as an organism, recycling wastes to meet the needs of other elements of the system and deriving its needs from other elements within this loop. Photosynthesis and oxygen/carbon dioxide gas exchange is the ultimate blueprint for this pattern. Treating the land, as an organism is clearly the goal to all holistic approaches to farming or land management, whether it’s permaculture, biodynamics, holistic resource management, biointensive, forest gardening or natural farming. The realm of physics offers some guidelines. Everything encounters the Law of Conservation of Energy; which states “that energy can not be created (made from nothing), or destroyed (made to disappear to no-where) and that energy can be changed from one form to another (such as electrical energy in to heat energy).” (Wikipedia.org). The classification of waste is non-existent in an ecological system. The distinction between where something is a waste product and a food source becomes blurred. Contrast the food chain worldview to the food web approach. The food chain represents the industrial, assembly-line outlook, whereas the food web view recognizes that all elements of a system are interconnected.
The trouble with designing closed-loop systems which self manage is that the law of conservation of energy within a given system doesn’t take into account the surplus ancient energy made available through the use of fossil fuels. Further, the economics of living in our “everything at your fingertips” consumer culture makes it difficult to create closed loop systems. Why grow grain or fodder crops for your animals when it is so easy and inexpensive to buy suitable feed at the local farm supply store. The industrialization of organics has even made organic factory-farmed feeds easily accessible. Because those of us living in industrialized nations live under a veritable cloak of waste (fossil fuels transmuted into surplus carbon) it tends to cloud our judgment as holistic designers. The monetary economy functions as a zone or element of our permaculture landscape. This facilitates an easy rationalization towards buying that reasonably priced certified organic poultry feed to ease management of our multi-species forest gardens.
The proliferation of Biofuels has brought the concept of Food=Waste to the forefront of the political and public sphere. With more corn and soy being grown to create ethanol and biodiesel we are casting our vote for the preferred pseudo-livestock of our postmodern permaculture landscape – the automobile. Food that could feed people and animals is being rendered into fuel by industrial processes, which cannot escape the law of conservation of energy. The streamlining effect that the food chain worldview has upon ecological systems aims to shorten the loops that solar energy goes through to meet human needs. In this vein the Biofuels argument is seen as a sound approach to deal with waste (in this case gross overproduction of corn and soy by agribusiness) and turn it into a resource, fuel, food for our cars and trucks. Measured in terms of total energy yield per acre, the land that now produces so much corn and soy is a pathetic waste of what was once an incredible prairie poly culture dominated by grasses, forbs, Bison and wildfire. Yet within our emerging ecotopian culture we have become blinded to the laws of physics. We embrace biodiesel (which uses more energy to make than it provides when burned), the compact fluorescent light bulb (which although they conserve energy, contain mercury), and other tech-no-logical band-aids in our valiant effort to ameliorate our impact upon a biosphere that is struggling with the modern human lifestyle
Clearly the pattern of natural systems is that of recycling and capturing energy. The complexity of interconnections in functioning ecosystems is the result of an endless process of new species moving into niches that may only exist for a geologically brief time. Human beings may well be such a species capitalizing upon a niche. Regardless we have a role to play. Founder of biodynamic agriculture, Rudolf Steiner once claimed that the role of humanity is to change the Earth. This concept is hard to accept, yet equally hard to refute. Rather than adapting to a niche, we have learned to adapt our environment to the agrarian and pastoral niche within which we have grown comfortable. Humanity seems confounded by a quandary here: the pattern of nature implies a hunter-gatherer nomadic relationship to the landscape rather than our sedentary agrarian relationship. Nevertheless, exceptions abound! Perhaps we may rejoice that humanity is not alone in our agrarian pursuits. Maybe we should laud our cleverness to join the ranks of fungal farming termites in South Africa, honeydew farming ants, or nectar gathering honeybees.
I believe that we can view the permaculture relationship to the land as a long trajectory process of ecological restoration. We aren’t going back to the past of foraging and hunting just yet. The farming systems and settlement patterns that we thoughtfully set into motion now are governed by the same rules as the rest of Gaia. Careful observation results in a feedback loop of what is successful and capitalizing on pulses of abundance, be it a bee tree, pigeon guano in an old barn, salvaged metal roofing, or a windfall peach crop dried and canned for storage. As we slowly wean ourselves from the petroleum umbilical cord that keeps many brilliant designs at bay, we are becoming more aware of numerous opportunity areas. Less external resources will force us to look to within our own system for its needs. As we start small and harvest our mistakes we will model farms and villages after ecosystems, which capture resources as they cascade through the food web like a net.
Farming for a living in the 21st century, I have found that needing to remain economically viable stimulates my creativity towards intelligent, holistic design. It helps if you have a permaculture streak running in your veins. For example, we grew about 1/6 of an acre of Calendula flowers to be dried and sold for medicinal use for a few years. The high labor costs of picking the flowers twice a week and the wholesale price we were being paid was beginning to edge this crop out of our production scheme. This was until we pursued a seed contract for the seeds, which we could still reliably mature after meeting our flower harvest quota. We also noticed over time that Calendula provided a trap crop for cucumber beetles, which helped our cucurbit vine crops. The goal of needing to remain profitable to stay in business farming precipitated an opportunity to stack functions.
We have also used this strategy successfully when integrating plant breeding, seed production and market gardening. In order to improve the genetics of many vegetable species that we grow on commercial contract for seed companies, we must cull or “rogue” plants with undesirable characteristics and deleterious genetic traits. Sometimes this can account for as much as 10% of a planting of lettuce or up to 90% when do selection for radish stock seed. So we have developed our market outlets (CSA, Growers’ markets) to accommodate selling our rogues, which are perfect for food, but are considered “off-types” in a seed planting. Seed growing in general has fostered a different outlook on vegetable farming in that the vegetable itself is merely a vehicle to grow the seed. So, the fruits of tomatoes, melons, squash and peppers are waste by-products of our seed production goals. Of course we don’t let this opportunity go unutilized, melon and squash halves are bagged for distribution to CSA members and countless wheelbarrow loads of fruits minus seeds feed our menagerie of livestock. Our motto is increasingly that each crop must have multiple yields and these should serve a diversity of elements. This view has been the result of observing resources pass unutilized through our farm system: calendula seeds, tall grass, rainwater from a roof, pest outbreaks, algae in ponds and countless others. This has enabled us to stay on the land farming a diverse small acreage without needing off farm jobs, as many farmers must do. Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm sums up the value of these observations nicely, “I am just the orchestra conductor making sure that everybody’s in the right place at the right time.”
Farming in the same spot for the past decade we have come to recognize that nature tends to produce periodic abundance in pulses rather than a steady stream. Oregon White Oak (quercus garyii) trees produced a bumper crop a few years back and we noticed resident wild turkeys and deer voraciously eating them. Our sheep also scoured oak grove edges overhanging their pastures for acorns that they would audibly crunch enthusiastically. This prompted us to begin to include turkeys in our pasture and woodland edge management and seasonally graze our sheep in oak woodlands. When crushed, our chickens and ducks relish acorn meal and with a bit of processing we relish them too (both the acorns and the birds). While deer, bear and others consume large amounts of acorns in season, we can capture surplus, or waste yields for a farm feed that is ideally harvested by the animals themselves. Although Oregon white oaks tend to produce acorns every year, varying in abundance, California Black Oak (quercus kellogii), yield every 2-5 years, were the preferred species of native peoples here due to their higher oil content (10-12% for Q.garayii, vs. 25-30% for Q.kellogii). This information has also influence our woodland management to favor Black Oaks and thin coniferous trees for structural poles, firewood, bark, fencing and lumber around them.
Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menzesii) presents itself as a classic opportunity to turn a liability into an asset as it regenerates readily in its own shade and tends to form wildfire prone thickets in the absence of periodic fire or disturbance. We build with peeled Douglas fir poles in place of dimensional lumber whenever possible. Soil tests indicated that although our land was historically a mixed coniferous and hardwood forest we had alkaline soil (pH =7.5 –> 8). Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm fame integrates forestry with farming using wood chips from logging and milling wastes as animal bedding and compost carbon source. Inspired by the example of Joel Salatin, we were encouraged to use forestry by-products (wastes) to meet our carbon needs on our farm. Starting with dead and windfall trees we integrate wood chips and saw dust from lumber milled on site as animal bedding under the theory that we can capture the excess nitrogen in sheep urine and poultry manure in a slow composting process with wood wastes and possibly help steer our pH to a more neutral reading. This also helps to limit our need for off farm straw for animal bedding and helps us reticulate carbon from the forest into our fields. Woodland and basketry coppice wastes wind up in brush fences, paddock cross fencing and a native alternative too many uses previously met by exotic bamboo. In many of these instances we are using forestry wastes to feed fungal communities and steer a bacterially dominated pasture based farm system to a mycrorhizal fungi dominated woodland savannah system.
An important observation about the unfolding of our farm system is that, although we set out with a design based on observation and assessment from the beginning, many of our most successful endeavors have been the result of a long-term relationship to the site. As we become clearer about our needs and the needs of the plants and animals around us, both domestic and wild, the clarity of our observations increases dramatically and design ideas spring forth as the obvious next step in the sequence of closing resource loops. I am certain that indigenous peoples adapted to changes in their landscape and their needs in a similar fashion. This is the long-term trajectory of which I mentioned earlier. These early versions of modern permaculture/whole systems farms will resemble modern agriculture less and less as they go through the process of becoming indigenous landscapes and communities. Until we see ourselves as fully enmeshed in our bioregions food web we will still perceive resources through the eyes of the food chain industrialist, as waste or idle and unused. The yields of the truly sustainable farm of the future will be an adaptation of the energy flowing through the system. Call it resources, waste or food, it all represents solar energy fixed as carbon, air, water and warmth. In our bioregion, the Siskiyou mountain farm of the future may be based much more upon supporting native pine/oak savannahs and their associated herbivores. However, it may involve planting of superior strains of genetically selected natives and inclusion of proven exotic species in a complex web of species garnering calories as sunlight, water, nutrients and carbon trickle through a series of sieves that resemble tree canopies, ponds, marshes, soil, animals and plants.

Don Tipping, and his family steward Seven Seeds Farm in the Siskiyou Mountains of Williams, Oregon. This is their 11th year growing seed, eggs, fruits, vegetables, sheep, mixed poultry and spreading the gospel of ecotopian culture. They help manage a cooperative CSA and seed growers network (www.siskiyoucoop.com) and train future permaculture farmers through classes and apprenticeships. sevenseedsfarm@yahoo.com

Making History with Seed

December 2007

Making History in a Seedy Way

Pondering the 70th anniversary of the Biodynamic Association in North America I came to think of historic biodynamic farms and farmers of this continent. Having spanned multiple generations, biodynamics now touches many aspects of our agri-culture. My mind swirled around the concept of history and legacy, which are sometimes intangible when viewed through the lens of nature. The natural world spirals forward not pausing for reflection backwards. Although the work of a vegetable farmer may be highly celebrated at farmers’ markets, dinner tables and farm conferences, our legacy is difficult to trace. After winters rains issue forth a lush explosion of spring weeds, our incredibly ordered reality of our tidy rows of carefully planted vegetables, herbs and flowers is all but erased. A temporary paradise is what I often contemplate as I hurry from one end of our farm to the other noticing a riot of beauty as I strain to maintain focus to the task at hand. As farmers we dance with impermanence daily. Natural forces challenge our ability to create history. Sure we may have historic barns, heritage orchards and livestock breeds. Who ever heard of a historic vegetable planting? “Remember the onions of ’93?” Not likely.
Seeds on the other hand, ooze heritage and history with each succeeding generation that they are grown to fruit. The word heirloom implies history in a direct, tangible if somewhat sentimental way. Like all natural patterns plants grown from seeds don’t evolve in a circular fashion, producing identical carbon copies of themselves. Rather they progress spirally onward four-dimensionally (space and time), always receptive to climate, pest-pressures, selection, pollen, and other stresses. Each seed produced is a completely new miracle. The concept of uniformity as a breeding objective is nonsequitur to how nature functions. Nevertheless the cultivated laborotry enables growers to sculpt plant genetics into their desired form through controlled breeding. Herein lies our potential for doing something historically noteworthy. Cultivation marries human intellect with the etheric nature of the plant and thereby infuses plant varieties with nostalgia and history in our memory.
Utter the words, “Sugar Snap” to a gardener and witness the subtle smile and daydreaming gaze of longing develop. Consider the Plant Variety Protection Act, which is a patent on a vegetable or fruit variety. Sugar Snap was a patented variety as its breeders wanted to ensure a monopoly on its supply for the 20-year duration of the patent. When we discover a good combination of genetics we want to make it last, especially if it tastes good. However, growers began to see that Sugar Snap lacked in certain areas such as resistance to disease and heat. The supplier of Sugar Snap peas didn’t need to adapt and evolve because everyone loved its flavor and the patent prevented other breeders from creating new breeding lines from this strain. After the patent expired an improved strain called “Super Sugar Snap” sought to correct its predecessor’s disease susceptibility but lost some of the flavor and yield in the process. The point here is that plant breeding is inextricably linked to the changing dynamics of the natural world yet we still try and overlay our modern materialistic constraints on the sharing of these genetics often times at the expense of growing the best quality food.
In some ways plant breeding has come to be akin to writing a book or a play. We thrive on notoriety and want to be patronized for our ingenuity. We coax desirable agronomic traits from the plant realm and want to be acknowledged for this effort. Perhaps we should put the plant in front of the person/company. As farmers we do not create varieties, we can only go so far as introducing pollen sources and notice traits. Ideally we hope to breed “workhorse” varieties that will stand the test of time because of their flexible genetics, disease resistance, vigor, and adaptability and public domain accessibility.
Years of seed production on our farm have afforded a unique glimpse at how to weave the plant kingdoms’ interpretation of history with a desire to foster lasting ecological stewardship. On our farm we produce seed for commercial contract on about 2 acres. While we try to harvest it as it ripens, many forces thwart our efforts – birds eat seed, wind scatters it, rain dislodges it and we simply spill a lot. Over the years our soil seed bank has become populated with the very varieties that we have cultivated and they become weeds. Imagine that! Some species’ seed tend to persist in the soil longer than others. Brassica rapa mustards such as mitzuna and pac chois return each spring for about 3 or 4 years like old friends returning to visit. Swiss chard, beets, parsley, kale, carrots, tomatoes, melons, radish, lettuce and endive are notable others. Parsnips resow with a vengeance and become persistent weeds. As I tend this menagerie I see the vision issued forth by the venerable Masanobu Fukuoka in his system of Natural Farming (read his watershed work, One Straw Revolution) of a polyculture of self-seeding annuals. He instructed that these conditions could be accelerated through the use of seed balls, a mixture of clay, compost and a mixture of seeds. We frequently harvest from these wild vegetable populations for salad mix and poultry forage. I also try and let some of them flower and set seed so they can perpetuate they volunteer tendencies.
From a permaculture perspective, annual vegetable production is viewed as holding the landscape in a phase of arrested succession, meaning that the ecosystem is not evolving past the early pioneer phase of plant succession which would naturally progress to include perennial herbs, animals, brambles, shrubs and trees. Our challenge as farmers and gardeners is to meld this knowledge of encouraging our systems to evolve and become more biodiverse while preserving our culturally important vegetable crops. My hope is to see the biodynamic community create history through its embrace of new methodologies to advance the development of ecological agriculture.

Don Tipping
Winter Solstice 2007