Here, as Fruition transforms from selling and shipping seeds to sharing seeds as a gift-inspired practice both on and off the farm, I’d love to share more about my relationship with seeds from my youngest years.
I grew up in my father’s garden here in Naples, saving seeds like peas and beans, zinnias and tomatoes. I remember plucking tomatoes in my father’s garden, sun-warm and oh so sweet. In awe of how many were held in a single, succulent fruit I observed,
“We only need a few of these seeds for us, Pappa!”
“That’s right,” he said. “Look how many we have to share with friends.”
After my first two decades sharing seeds in home-made packets folded from the glossy pages of national geographic, I worked on organic farms with a focus on organic seed for nearly a decade before co-founding Fruition in 2012, convinced there was no better way to love the people and places I love than to grow and share seeds I love.
Devoting my life to growing seeds as Fruition also meant devoting my life to developing a website, getting a smart phone and challenging my vast distaste for having my photo taken and being on video. (Side-note: how far have I come, have you come, have we all come, for what we love?!!)
All in service of these miraculous beings, seeds, and sharing their stories, cultivating skills internal and external to grow and transform myself, our garden, our world.
At some point, we met, you and I. Perhaps in person and perhaps not yet embodied, our paths have crossed.
Many people, when they meet me say, ‘I feel like I know you’ and Friends, I assure you do know me: I don’t act. Though there are plenty of emotions I feel that I don’t record and share (don’t worry, I’m humxn!), years of practice has largely transformed my fear of making videos so I can joyfully share my love of plants, seeds and this world in the spirit of making embodied relationship possible.
(This is your clear & cordial invitation to join us on the farm & on the journey, it’s true!)
As I walk a path forged only in the last ~150 years — selling seeds — I’ve been immensely successful, by most measures. Across the years, our ‘success’ allowed us to welcome employees and a decade passed in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, a team of 12 beloved humxns are shipping sometimes 100+ orders a day.
Friends, from the outside, nothing shifted.
You watch my videos, read my blogs, you give us dollars to support us as you receive miraculous seeds in packets, magically in your mailbox.
For me, scale and ‘success’ brought slow and then deep misalignment with myself, our team, our community and also with the seeds and land beneath our feet.
My favorite moments, from the beginning and to this day, are being in relationship with you, our wide and beloved community, sharing the joy and deep wisdom of seeds and gardens together.
As my role shifted from seed lover to business owner, my heart sank and slowly began to break with bins of seeds becoming ‘inventory’ being shipped with no relationship beyond dollars received and invoices printed, payroll to process and assembly lines of friends becoming employees.
As our friend Markael pointed out, I felt enmeshed in a system I wished to transform: the global web of commerce that divorces ‘products’ from story, humanity, responsibility to each other and future generations of all species. Convenience is king and seeds become commodities: potential future income.
So much of life is learning to hold paradox with grace…
…and Friends, we held on as long as we could.
Painful, complex and scary as it feels, Matthew and I, decided it was time to change. To restore reciprocity and relationship at the center, connecting as humxns with the people sowing our seeds, sharing these seeds as gifts and receiving gifts, stories and grace rather than simply transactional dollars.
We sense there are more in the seed community who also feel such tensions.
As new seed growers sprout across the country, perhaps more of us might re-personalize, re-localize and move away from mail-order models, exploring new ways of being in relationship with seeds and each other.
Diversity is the foundation of resilience.
And have no doubt:
We may not have answers, but ohhhhhhh we have seeds…
…and we’ll be sharing them more creatively than ever!
Thanks for growing with us in all the ways & joining us on the journey
Sow Seeds & Sing Songs,
Sow Seeds & Sing Songs,
and the Many Beings of Fruition
(inspired and framed alongside the the kind, compassionate care of Markael, a huge and forever thank you, Friend)