I look around the garden and I see it happening everywhere, on so many different plants: seed is forming. Seed is the start of most everything we grow, yet most of the seed we gardeners and even more important the nation’s farmers plant originates elsewhere – often very far away from our home soil – and many of us who garden know relatively little about seed except how to order more for the coming growing season and sow it.

Now, while there’s perhaps still time to save some for next year or to share with a friend, and well before the seed catalogs arrive loaded with temptations galore, I thought it a good time to think about where our seed comes from, and reflect on how we gardeners can each do our small part to support a healthy seed system.  

I met today’s guest, Bill Braun, when I was working on a recent New York Times garden column about seed saving. Bill is an organic seed farmer and co-founder of the non-profit Freed Seed Federation in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, which describes itself as a “farmer-run nonprofit dedicated to the preservation, adaptation, and diversification of place-based seed” – in his case, specifically seed for the Northeast U.S.  I asked Bill to join us today to remind us of some of the ways we gardeners can get to know the seed better.

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