Of Seeds, Dreams & Grandmothers

honoring our ancestors + seed gifting near you 🌱

Imagine the seeds your great great grandmother sowed…

…and those sowed by all great great grandmothers before her…

...imagine their hopes, fears and dreams…

…imagine the love they felt for you, the world they planted for you, in fields in some seasons fertile, then fallow and then burned black…

…imagine that love surrounding you now, infusing all generations yet to come.

Thanks for all the times you held me, Grandma LaVonne

And Friends, can I tell you?

My Grandmother just passed,

a gentle soul living

independently ‘til her final day at 95.

Her gifts in my life are many

and Friends, would you pause with me?

Snow falls in silence. Cardinals hop through honeysuckle.

Deep in winter’s dormancy, I feel my soul shiver with every headline, yet:

The vacuous absence of a beloved heart no longer beating is nourished by the palpable presence of her life and love all around me.

You, too?

Have tended such gardens of grief?

How do you honor your loved ones, as they pass into memory?

In front of my Grandparent’s home in Kentucky

I remember

sitting with my Grandmother in her garden surrounded by flowers, sharing a big bowl of strawberry ice cream. Hummingbirds zoom between fuchia petunia, bursting zinnia and chive blossoms. I remember hoping they would zoom closer and closer: might these bright red strawberries in my bowl be enough to entice them? Even now I can feel the joy of our shared laughter as they zoomed overhead, ice cream long melted.

Every year we sow an abundance of

seeds that delight

untold generations of hummingbirds

and this year

I’ll sow them in your honor, Grandma.

I’ll gasp as I hear their first wings zoom overhead. All summer long I’ll pause with the presence of you in their dazzling antics. I’ll smile remembering how tidy you kept your gardens, imagining you smiling wide at the wildness that infuses your granddaughter’s farm.

Speaking of hummingbirds: Our dear friend Laurel just reminded us of the wise Kenyan story and invitation, shared through the voice and vision of the Nobel Peace Prize receiving Wangari Maathai:

I will be a hummingbird.

Taking two minutes listen to the story may be just the medicine you need this week, especially if you’re concerned alongside us for the state of our hearts, our nation and so many ripples between and beyond. Here is Wangari:

And Grandma, do you remember holding me in your home, in your garden, in Krohn Conservatory all those years ago?

Thank you for teaching me I am always held by you and the plants, too.

There are as many ways to garden as there are gardeners…

…and Friends, as you dream, source and sow the seeds in your garden this season:

How might your garden become a memorial for hearts who have loved and come before you?

What might you plant for the people experiencing seasons of grief around you?

How will feeding hummingbirds also feed you and your neighbors, too?

What might you plant, honoring (y)our ancestors, known and unknown?

And Friends, we ask many questions of ourselves and seeds in our Gift of Seeds gift sharing practice, a celebration to be sure and a memorial too, as all gardens are: life emerging from dark earth, the gardens that have come before.

In honor of the living legacy of our last 10,000 generations of grandmothers, ours and yours:

Let us gift you seeds!

most of our 300+ regionally adapted seeds we will share as gifts at these gatherings, take a peek:

A Celebratory Seed Swap for a New Seed Library!

at Wood Library in Canandaigua, New York

Thursday February 6 | 5:30 - 8:30 pm

Let’s celebrate the beginning of the Wood Library Seed Library by sharing seeds (bring your own home-saved seeds or extra packets from seasons past) with each other as well as receiving hundreds of varieties of regionally adapted seeds from Fruition! We’ll also pack seeds for the Seed Library, nourishing all generations to come. Please consider joining us for the whole experience, though drop-ins are welcome. We’ll be packing seeds for the Seed Library ’til the seed swap officially begins at 7.

Save the date(s)!

January 28: Seeding the Future: Seed Packing Social + Corn Sorting from 11 to 3 at Ganondagan in Victor, NY (at the White Corn Project rather than the Cultural Center)

February 1: The Gift of Seeds at Foundation of Light from 1 to 4 in Ithaca, NY (sold out)

February 6: A Celebratory Seed Swap for a New Seed Library! 5:30 to 8 at Wood Library in Canandaigua, NY (no registration needed)

February 8: Seed Packing Social + Onion Planting Workshop from 1 to 4 pm at the Edgerton Ballroom in Rochester, NY (no registration needed)

February 12: The Gift of Seeds in Huntington, VT (more details to come)

February 14th: The Gift of Seeds in Burlington, VT (no need to register)

February 15: Seeds, Gifts & the Hard Work of Receiving: 2 Workshops at the NOFA-VT Conference in Burlington, VT (register here)

February 16: Sowing & Saving Seeds of Resilience: all day seed intensive for both commercial & non-commercial seed folk at the NOFA-VT Conference in Burlington, VT (register here)

March 6: The Gift of Seeds at Forbes Library from 5:30 to 8 in Northampton, MA (no registration needed)

March 9: The Gift of Seeds at Resilient Roots from 1 to 4 in Barnstable, MA (register here)

March 11: 2 Events ~ The Gift of Seeds + Seeding Resilient Farms & Gardens at Orange County NY Cooperative Extension (more details to come)

March 12: 2 Events ~ The Gift of Seeds + Seeding Resilient Farms & Gardens with VINES and Cooperative Extension in Binghamton, NY (more details to come)

March 13: The Gift of Seeds in Hudson, NY (more details to come)

March 16: The Gift of Seeds in the Montague, MA (more details to come)

March 19: Seeding the Future: Seed Packing Social at South Wedge Mission from 5:30 to 8 pm in Rochester, NY

March 22: The Gift of Seeds and Seed Saving Workshop at the Urban Agriculture Conference in Rochester, NY

March 23: 2 Events ~ Seeding the Future (sermon by Petra 10:30 to 11:30) + The Gift of Seeds (1:30 to 4:30) at the Amherst UU Church in Buffalo, NY (more details to come)

March 24: 2 Events ~ The Gift of Seeds + Seeding Resilient Farms & Gardens at the Geneva, NY Library (more details to come)

stay tuned for more to come:

we are the seeds!

and the Many Becomings of Fruition

ps

If you’ve been forwarded this email and would love to subscribe, please do and hope to see you here on the farm one day, too!

pps

Did you know? I love to grow Mermaid’s Tale cabbage to make pink sauerkraut each season to honor my Grandma Margo and our deep Polish roots, so grateful to ferment in her ever so slightly cracked yet still serviceable 20-gallon crock. I look forward to sharing our seeds, ferments and so much more with you, Friends: