Austin Vaughn

What do seeds carry beyond their genetic inheritance? How do we preserve the stories, cultures, and relationships that give them meaning?In this Going to Seed conversation, Spencer Suffling of Tanager Farm speaks with Sama Mansouri, founder of Reyhan Herb Farm in California's San Francisco Bay Area. Sama grows and shares heritage seeds from Iran and neighboring regions, helping reconnect immigrant communities with familiar foods, flavors, and cultural traditions.Beginning with Iranian herbs grown in borrowed backyards, Sama describes how a desire to make culturally meaningful crops more accessible evolved into a seed-saving practice. She shares stories of seeds entrusted to her by community members, her experiences growing rare varieties from the USDA's seed collections, and the profound joy she finds in harvesting, threshing, and winnowing seeds.A particularly moving story centers on Armenian sunflowers, whose cultural history and grandmotherly presence remind Sama that seeds and their stories belong together. The conversation explores the responsibilities of seed stewardship, the tensions between preserving varieties and allowing them to adapt, and the complicated history of agricultural biodiversity amid displacement, war, and cultural loss.Sama and Spencer also examine the economic realities of small-scale farming, the challenges of sustaining meaningful seed work, and the need for cooperative approaches to land, livelihood, and community.Ultimately, this conversation invites us to see seed keeping as more than agriculture — as a living practice of cultural remembrance, reciprocity, and care, and an opportunity to imagine a different relationship with the world we hope to leave behind.

How can we honor the cultural histories of ancestral seeds while giving plants the freedom to cross, adapt, and create something new?In this Going to Seed conversation, Bonetta Adeeb of Ujamaa Seeds joins Spencer Suffling of Tanager Farm to explore the connections between seed stewardship, cultural heritage, biodiversity, and community resilience.Bonetta shares the origins of Ujamaa Seeds, from educational programs supporting underserved youth to a seed enterprise dedicated to preserving culturally meaningful crops and reconnecting communities with ancestral food traditions. She describes the Heirloom Gardens Oral History Project, which gathers elders' stories about traditional crops, foodways, and medicinal plants before that knowledge disappears.The conversation examines the importance of attribution — recognizing the communities and generations of seed keepers whose knowledge and labor shaped the crops we grow today. Bonetta explains how oral histories can help document that heritage and challenge assumptions about seed ownership.The discussion also celebrates the extraordinary diversity of Ultra Cross collards, where ancestral varieties mingle and produce new combinations of colors, forms, flavors, and environmental adaptations. Bonetta challenges the idea that preserving traditional varieties and encouraging promiscuous pollination must conflict. Ujamaa embraces both approaches, maintaining ancestral varieties while inviting plants to evolve through natural crossing.Along the way, Bonetta and Spencer explore seed sovereignty, cultural identity, climate resilience, and the importance of having difficult conversations across different seed-saving traditions.Central theme: Honoring the ancestors who stewarded our seeds need not prevent us from welcoming their descendants into new relationships. Cultural preservation and ongoing adaptation can flourish together.

What happens when we follow our hearts, embrace uncertainty, and allow our passions to shape our livelihoods?In this episode of Going to Seed, Noel Ruiz shares the personal journey that led him and his sweetheart, Anne, to create Homestead Culture, a small family seed business in southern Oregon.Beginning with a period of profound life changes, Noel describes how gardening, permaculture, and volunteering on farms helped him discover a more fulfilling relationship with work, community, and the natural world. Reconnecting with Anne, the couple pursued their shared dream of homesteading, eventually discovering an unexpected opportunity to grow and sell seeds.With little money, limited experience, and a small rented garden, they began producing seeds for Restoration Seeds while developing their own online catalog. Noel describes how curiosity, supportive mentors, simple tools, and a willingness to experiment helped their business grow. Their offerings expanded to include vegetables, flowers, herbs, wild foods, and perennial plants.Along the way, Noel explores the practical advantages of seed farming, the joys of involving their young son in the garden, and their growing interest in genetically diverse crops, grexes, and landraces.More than a story about starting a seed business, this conversation celebrates love, serendipity, cooperation, and the courage to pursue meaningful work without waiting for perfect circumstances.Discover Homestead Culture at homesteadculture.com

What do our seeds reveal about the values we bring to farming, and how might growing for diversity rather than uniformity transform our relationship with plants?In this episode of Going to Seed, Spencer Suffling welcomes Jen Williams of Wild Dreams Farm & Seed on Vashon Island, Washington, for a conversation about small-scale seed production, genetic diversity, community, and the values that guide our choices as seed growers.Jen shares her journey from market farming and climate justice organizing to building a small seed company rooted in relationships with plants, people, and place. She describes the challenges of balancing financial sustainability with curiosity, experimentation, and the desire to steward seeds that carry cultural and ancestral significance.The conversation explores how quickly crops can adapt when grown for successive generations on the same farm. Jen shares her experiences with genetically diverse fava beans and watermelons, supported by Going to Seed's farmer grant program. Her breeding goals emphasize flavor, resilience, and diversity rather than the uniform appearance often prioritized in commercial agriculture.Spencer and Jen also discuss the importance of regional seed networks, cooperation among growers, and finding ways to support experimental breeding projects that may not immediately generate commercial returns.Throughout the conversation, they invite listeners to consider how seed selection reflects human priorities — and how choosing diversity, cooperation, and adaptation can help cultivate a more resilient and generous agricultural future.Central theme: The seeds we grow reflect what we value. By selecting for flavor, adaptation, beauty, and diversity, we can nurture crops that express both ecological possibility and the relationships we hope to cultivate.

Adaptation Agriculture: Growing Food Through Diversity, Community, and CooperationWhat happens when we stop trying to control nature and instead invite our crops to adapt to the places where they grow?In this solo episode of Going to Seed, Joseph Lofthouse shares his presentation from the January 2024 Utah Farm and Food Conference in Cedar City, Utah, hosted by Red Acre Center for Food and Agriculture.Joseph traces his journey from working as a chemist in the pesticide industry to becoming a farmer dedicated to growing food without fertilizers, pesticides, or other costly agricultural inputs. Faced with a challenging mountain climate, he discovered that genetically diverse crops, promiscuous pollination, and locally saved seeds could produce abundant harvests where conventional varieties struggled.Through stories of muskmelons, okra, carrots, corn, and tomatoes, Joseph illustrates how adaptation agriculture allows plants to develop relationships with their local ecosystems. He explores the role of beneficial microbes, insects, natural selection, and farmer preferences in shaping resilient crops — often with less labor and fewer purchased inputs.The presentation also introduces his work restoring genetic diversity and promiscuous pollination to domestic tomatoes, producing surprising new flavors and possibilities for adaptation.Throughout the episode, Joseph celebrates a shift from control and domination toward cooperation, biodiversity, and reciprocity. He highlights the community seed-sharing programs, educational resources, and farmer networks supported by Going to Seed.Joseph also honors Red Acre Center for its ongoing advocacy for food freedom in Utah and wishes former co-host Shane Simonson success with his new podcast, Zero Input Agriculture.Central theme: Rather than forcing plants to conform to our agricultural systems, we can invite them to adapt, evolve, and become contributing members of their local ecological communities.

In his final episode, Shane interviews himself to help launch his new solo podcast: Zero Input Agriculture. Shane outlines his breeding work, successes with shifting to a zero input agricultural mindset, and efforts and experiences in building networks of local growers to start the long process of reviving agriculture that can stand the test of time.To keep listening to the new podcast, and read about Shane's never ending stream of results on his experimental farm, sign up for free at www.zeroinputagriculture.substack.com for weekly updates in your inbox.You can also read Shane's exploration of the past and possible future of agriculture in "Taming the Apocalypse" and his biological science fiction in "Our Vitreous Womb".Drop Shane an email at [email protected] if you have a suggested podcast guest, or just to say hi.

Shane talks with Paul Ward as he reflects on a lifetime of experience breeding maize, tepary beans, landrace wheat in temperate Australia and a whole bunch of other side topics.

Shane Simonsen talks to Reville Saw about his work rehabilitating degraded land in West Papua using syntropic principles, the indigenous agriculture surviving in Papua, and his own extensive efforts breeding bananas from original species, lima beans, restoring fertility to ginger, breeding better biomass plants, and a bunch of other topics.

Richard Paul Watson talks to Shane about his efforts growing and breeding a wide range of vegetable crops in windy New Zealand, and his successes in building a network of seed growers to create a collective seed sales organisation, the Sentinels Group.Check out more of Richard's work at https://www.sentinelsgroup.co.nz

Farmer and educator William DeMille talks to Joseph and Holly about permaculture, biodynamics, silvopasture, holistic management and georgics and how they apply to his farm in northern Nevada.Check out more of Williams work belowhttps://www.thegeorgicrevolution.com/https://www.amazon.com/Worry-Free-Eating-William-John-DeMille/dp/B0BW2Y4GLZhttps://www.amazon.com/Ditch-Rider-William-DeMille/dp/154509053X/https://www.instagram.com/gardening_with_william_demille/https://www.facebook.com/william.demille.50