Alfred Reed Bishop and Doris William Butler

The picture above is the very tap root of Bishop's Homegrown/Face Of The Earth Seed. My grandparents shortly after moving to Pekin Indiana from Greensburg KY in 1947 where they purchased the farm that is now Bishop's Homegrown. This picture was taken in Pekin in front of the old co-op next to the old railroad depot, neither of which exist today.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Spring is just around the corner, have you got your seed yet?

Over the past couple of days I have been organizing the massive on farm seed collection. So many things and so little space to store them! I find it funny how a lot of times I'll be thinking; "Crap, I need to order this, this, this, and that." and then I'll start digging through the boxes and come accross everything I needed! Of course I get a lot of stuff in trades as well as a lot of stuff just sent to me with notes that say things like; "Thought these seeds might interest you!". They do, all of them, that's the problem, sometimes theres almost too much and I just have to make a decision about what I will grow and won't grow. When it comes to producing seed it has come down to three categories:
The best of the rarest of the rare, including local heirlooms
Original breeding material from friends
On farm original breeding material

And there are a couple of reasons to make such things a priority. One is because at the moment we are still primarally a Market Farm so we have to grow things which will sell, do well in our systems, and get the attention of customers.

The second, and possibly more important reason is.............over the next few years we are going to be shifting gears a little bit in an attempt to become primarilly a genepool resource to our bio-region and surrounding ones.


The first step in all of this is the announcement of a new, original, farmer owned seed company.

Take this as an unofficial announcement of my intentions, but not quite an official one.

However I will be applying for the permit in the coming days and if all goes well there will be a new seed company catered specifically to Adventerous Gardeners, Plant Breeders, and Homesteaders called:

FACE OF THE EARTH SEED CO.

I should mention here that we will deal in those "rarest of the rare, best of the best, farm-breeder" seeds in small quantities, including genepools and segregating hybrids.


We will also be growing some exclusive items specifially for our good friend Stewart at www.afewgoodplants.com as well! Go ahead and check out his seed co. some good selections there from a great guy!

In the mean time, have you been over to Homegrown Goodness (http://alanbishop.proboards60.com) lately? Theres still some burgening seed trades going on there and if you don't have something why not arrange a trade with someone who does and save a few dollars.

And don't forget about Patricks blogger seed network at http://www.patnsteph.net/weblog/seed-exchange/.

Oh, and have I mentioned that Ken Ettlinger from LISEED (www.liseed.org) got his new list up?

How about checking out Alan Kapuler and his daughter Dylana's Peace seeds(lings) (www.peaceseeds.com)?

I appologize for the lack of active links, but apparently blogger forgot to turn that option on today or something)

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