Thursday we arrived at seed savers to volunteer with their work crew, and assisted in weeding some of their plots in the morning. Following this the group arrived to the local co-op for lunch and were treated to a local meal. We learned that they considered local to mean within a 100 mile radius and attempt to clearly mark products that meet this categorization. Shoppers can join their membership program for a cost of around $125 one time payment and if one joins they are treated to special member discounts once a month and once a quarter. Their goal is to have a significant impact on the local community, helping farmers and employing local members. Furthermore, locals may volunteer and be treated to other discounts. An interesting point made was that not all products in the co-op are organic, some products are unavailable unless conventional or the organic supply can not meet the demands of the customers.

Following lunch and a tour, we arrived back at seed savers for a 3 hour long crash-course in all things Seed Savers. It began with the history, where the founder had collected seeds from her grandfather who shared the significance of them to her and their family history of planting the tomatoes and flowers. She then took out ads in papers and magazines that gardeners read to see if others had heirloom seeds and wanted to exchange them with other gardeners. This then grew slowly via a “grassroots” movement into what Seed Savers is today.

Following the history we then got a tour of the display garden and learned that they compare similar seeds right next to each other in that garden to see if they have duplicates. We were then taken to the seed vault and explained the sorting process and talked to the Seed Historian about the narratives surrounding the seeds and how they are collected. We then learned about grafting buds from apple trees into root stock and how the orchard functions at Seed Savers as well as their partnership with a local cider producer. It was an extremely insightful tour into how important it is to maintain multiple varieties of non-GMO seeds, done sustainably on site.