The Utopian Seed Project

09/04/2026

Anne Grier from Gaining Ground Farm had a beautiful stand of oilseed sunflowers as a cover crop, which I happened to drive by each day as I dropped my children off at school.

I reached out to ask if I could harvest some before she plowed down the cover crop and the next thing I know there were 6 crates of beautiful freshly harvested sunflower heads!

Next stage is to dry them down, thresh and winnow the seed, and then press the seed for sunflower seed oil. Freshly pressed seed oil is nothing like you'd find in the store. It actually tastes like sunflower seeds!

Obviously Anne will receive some of the seeds she shared back in oil form!!

09/03/2026

Can you help us buy an oil press?

I'm very excited to share this video from Oil Press Co. It's an American made M70 Precision Cold Screw Oil Press. They are pressing 12lbs of seed that I sent them from our okra seed oil breeding project as a 'crush test' to make sure this press is the right press for the next phase of our project. They'll be sending the press cake and oil back to me so we can use it in product testing.

The next phase of the project is to take the improved lines from our breeding project and begin field testing on a larger scale. A few hundred row few to an acre to a few acres... Alongside testing the agronomics and harvesting of oilseed okra, we also need to be pressing the seed for oil on the culinary side!

This press and the centrifuge that comes with it cost about $15k. As you can see, it easily presses okra seed, but can also handle a whole range of other seeds. I'm putting this dream into the universe in the hopes of finding a passionate okra devotee who has the ability to fund such an investment (feel free to share with friends and philanthropists).

NOTE: I am completely willing to name the press after anyone who funds it!!

09/03/2026

The chayote are coming! There's a day-length trigger on flowering that always makes chatote a late season crop (and for many varieties, too late for our region i.e. a frost will kill the plants before fruit can form).

However, we have a couple of varieties that work in Western North Carolina, and now that they've started, the vigorous vines that are relatively pest and disease free will pump out LOTS of fruit.

09/01/2026

Super proud of one of our founding board members - amazing farmer, chef, and person!!

This month's Feature Farmer Friday is Old North Farm in Polkville, ...

08/28/2026

I got to spend the afternoon checking out our okra seed oil breeding project at the The Seed Farm @ Princeton

This is the F5 generation and it's exciting to see the diversity between the breeding lines.

Unfortunately we can't SEE oil seed content, so each year we save seeds from all the plants and analyze for oil content to make the selections.

We started with parents that had 19-20% oil content and currently have some seeds registering 27-33% oil content!

Heading to the Culinary Breeding Network 💗 by Lane Selman Variety Showcase at Glynwood to showcase our okra oil breeding work!

08/26/2026

The Maxima Mix (species Cucurbita maxima) is an evolving squash population that started off as five different varieties in 2023 and has since mixed and shifted each year. These squash came from seeds that came from squash that we screen for deliciousness, so we're hoping that a lot of them turn out tasty. We're also paying attention to no spray field performance and are happy with the health and vigor of these plants.

This is part of a regional Southern SARE funded Community Seed Selection and Regional Adaptation project with participating farmers across the Southeast.

08/25/2026

This year we are growing a small plot of Angled Luffa (Luffa acutangula) and 'Sponge' Luffa (Luffa aegyptiaca). They are both members of the squash family and vine and fruit prolifically. The young fruit can be eaten like zucchini or summer squash, both with cultural and culinary ties to different parts of Asia.

One major benefit of growing Luffa is that the plants don't succumb to the same pests and diseases as the more commonly grown Cucurbita crops (summer squash and winter squash) and Cucumis crops (melons and cucumbers). We currently have a trellis full of lush green growth, abundant flowers, and lots of fruit for food and seed saving.

Personally, I'm excited to be growing the Angled Luffa, which is sometimes called Chinese Okra. For the last 10 years, folks have reached out to me to talk of the fabled Chinese Okra. In the early days of my okra research it took me a moment to realize that Chinese Okra was actually a Luffa! Last year a grower from Robinsville NC sent me seeds and high praise for this crop, and so, 10 years after learning about it, I'm finally growing it.

The 'Sponge' Luffa seeds came from a large dried Luffa fruit that was presented to by The Psycho Chicken Eco Farm when I received the Organic Educators Award from Organic Growers School in 2024. The gourd-like fruit had sat on my shelf for 2 years, but the seeds within were ready to grow!

Seeds are special!

08/24/2026

Our little slice is Hawaii.... AKA taro in Western North Carolina!

08/20/2026

We visited Mary Bulan at Little Farm - Black Mountain. Mary is a member of the Appalachian Growers Seed Collective and is growing TN Spinning Top gourds. These tiny fruit will mature into miniature gourds that have been traditionally used as children's toys. They are the same species as summer squash and zucchini, so I thought I'd take a bite to see how they taste...

I like black coffee, dark chocolate, and raw bittermelon, but this was one of the most bitter things I've ever tasted. There's actually a toxin in some wild squash species that can be deadly in large quantities. I've read that it would be hard to eat enough because it's so bitter. I'm not sure if that's what I experienced, but I spat it all out and scraped my tongue. It was nasty!!

Lesson*: this gourd is cute and fun and I'm totally going to grow some, but don't eat them!

*We are a research and education nonprofit!

08/17/2026

This is a POI F5 selection from the okra seed oil breeding project. POI stands for Pods of Interest and F5 is the fifth generation after the initial mixing of the parent varieties. Each year that we select and save seeds from certain plants that we like, those preferred traits become more stable. This particular POI is spineless, tasty, and has darker pigmentation along its ridges. Both its parents were from Sudan, so for now we are calling it Sudanese Striped. We've been working on this project at the The Seed Farm @ Princeton but this year brought seeds from plants #101 and #106 to grow at our farm. There's still enough diversity between the plants that we can select seeds from the plants that perform well in our region.