PANORAMA
ENVIRONMENT Ground Up From the
In Colorado, seed savers are working to preserve the produce and plants of the Southwest BY WILL GRANT
ulia Coffey believes that sustainability begins with something quite basic: seeds. To her, the annual cycle of starting, growing and saving seeds is fundamental to ensuring biodiversity on the table and in the garden. Coff ey, 28, owns and runs Seeds Trust, a Littleton,
Colorado-based seed pro- vider specializing in plants
particularly suited to the arid, often-extreme environments of the American Southwest. “I believe in the philosophy behind this,” she says. “Seeds are the most basic part of our food structure, and I feel like it’s the most important thing for me to work on, according to my beliefs.” Seeds Trust is one of about a dozen
where our seeds come from. Businesses like Seeds Trust, founded in 1984 in Cornville, Arizona, by renowned seeds- man Bill McDorman, encourage the trend and provide growers with proven, high-quality seeds.
Littleton-based Seeds Trust is conserving the Southwest’s rich biodiversity, storing and selling seeds for plants like rattlesnake pole green beans.
Since its founding, Seeds Trust has helped promote and distribute both underappreciated spe- cies, like the rattlesnake pole green bean, and new species, like Sasha’s Altai tomato, suited to the Western climate. The rattlesnake beans produce pods without irrigation if sown at the beginning of the summer monsoon season. Sasha’s tomato, adapted for a short growing season and
seed-saving organizations across the country off ering organic, heirloom and climate-specifi c seeds. The growing trend toward cultivating local food sources has led to increased awareness of
22 DORADO • JULY/AUGUST 2015
imported from Siberia by McDorman in 1989, is now grown in thousands of gardens and sold across the country. To the people behind them, seed banks, seed libraries and seed trusts, each in their unique way, act as security measures against the homogenization
of horticulture. The philosophy behind saving seeds is taking the best produce from one season and transferring it to the next season, which often means leaving some of the produce on the vine or stem instead of conducting a complete harvest. Coff ey bought Seeds Trust from
McDorman and his wife in 2010 and moved the business from Cornville to Littleton. Today, her basement is crammed with jars and containers of seeds. Her windowsills and porch are crowded with plant boxes of sprouts. When someone places an order, Coff ey prepares, packages and ships the seeds. “The most important part of this
project is to encourage my customers not to come back,” Coff ey says. “The idea is to take the seeds, plant them, save the seeds and plant them again next year.”
SOWING SUSTAINABILITY To order seeds from Seeds Trust, visit
seedstrust.com.
FROM TOP: AMY COVINGTON/STOCKSY; GAYLA TRAIL.
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