New On Our Blog

Climate change is having an effect on the growing season in the southwest. Monsoon rains are coming later, summers are drier, and gardens are being planted later.

Unpredictable Monsoons Affect Planting Times

June 24, 2020 | Sheryl Joy

by Sheryl Joy, Collections Curator In the Greater Southwest, El Dia de San Juan (June 24) has long been celebrated as the time of the coming of the summer rains. A time to celebrate the end of the dry-heat, to rejoice in the crack of lightning, the crash of thunder and the rush of rain that mean...

Will This Seed Grow Where I live?

February 07, 2020 | Sheryl Joy

It's seed-catalog browsing season, that time when many gardeners around the country find a cozy spot to do their garden dreaming and planning. This season our NS/S staff often hear this question: Will this variety grow well in my garden in ________? Fill in the blank with any town from Wenatchee...

Students Experience Wheat from Seed to Plate

November 24, 2019 | Laura Neff

By Laura Neff, Education Coordinator At Native Seeds/SEARCH we are always excited to hear stories involving the arid-adapted crop seeds that were obtained either by sale, or through one of our many seed access programs. In September, Mike Warner, a teacher from Tempe High School in Tempe, Arizon...

Lessons from Teosinte

November 20, 2019 | Sheryl Joy

By Sheryl Joy, Collections Manager Growing plants, for every gardener and farmer anywhere ever, is a learning experience. That is certainly true here at the NS/S Conservation Center, where every year we are growing different varieties that are often unfamiliar to many or all of us. It is also som...

Adopt-A-Crop Update: Yoeme Blue Corn

September 05, 2019 | Michelle Langmaid

Last week we were admiring how robust and healthy the plot of Yoeme Blue Corn appeared, it had begun to tassle, and was reaching its mature height of 3-5 feet. Predictably, other community members had also noticed; mostly fig beetles and aphids, but also leaf-footed bugs, striped cucumber beetles...

Yerba Anís

August 16, 2019 | Michelle Langmaid

By Michelle Langmaid, Volunteer & Production Coordinator. There is a bookshelf here in our lab lined with five-ring binders containing hard copies of original collection information for nearly all of the 1,900 accessions in the seed bank. Recently as I dove into these volumes looking for the...

Not Your Average Okra

June 18, 2019 | Michelle Langmaid

By Michelle Langmaid, Volunteer & Production Coordinator Behind the scenes, the Adopt-A-Crop campaign can feel like an emotional rollercoaster: Starting with small handfuls of rare seeds, we plant them but only some germinate; we worry about having a large enough population size to maintain h...

Adopt-A-Crop 2019: Rare Crop Introduction

May 31, 2019 | Laura Neff

In our warming world, drought-adapted food plants are more important than ever. “Adopt-A-Crop allows us to bring awareness to the importance of saving seeds, growing what works best in our region, and sharing this knowledge, and seeds, with everyone. Making sure this precious biodiversity is arou...

Less Plastic, Glassine!

April 17, 2019 | Liz Fairchild

Plastic is causing big problems around us. Only today, BBC reported on an article in the journal NatureGeoscience, microplastics (tiny pieces of degraded plastic) can travel regularly 60 miles, or more. Scientists tested a very rural area in the Pyrenees, 75 miles from the nearest city, finding ...

CSG Highlight: Ochoa Community School

February 28, 2019 | Laura Neff

Spring, summer, and fall, Native Seeds/SEARCH awards up to 30 packets of seed to programs and community projects that focus on education, food security, and community development through our Community Seed Grant (CSG) Program and was recently invited to tour the school garden of one recipient.