The Seed Farmer Podcast – Détails, épisodes et analyse

David Catzel is the BC Seed Security Program Manager at FarmFolk City Folk, the Regional Program Coordinator for the Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security, and serves on the board of the BC EcoSeed Co‑op. He also grows seed at Fraser Common Farm Co‑op.

In this episode, David shares his experience supporting growers, organizing cooperatives, and stewarding seed networks. We talk about on‑farm plant breeding, including his efforts to select an open‑pollinated white peacock kale.

In the deep dive, David and I get into the nitty-gritty of growing sea kale (Crambe maritima), covering its tricky germination, perennial habits, and seed production.

I hope you enjoy this conversation.

Enjoy the conversation!

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Episode links

BC Seeds Gatherings

https://farmfolkcityfolk.ca/bc-seed-security-program/bc-seed-gathering/

Farm Folk City Folk

https://farmfolkcityfolk.ca/bc-seed-security-program/

https://www.instagram.com/farmfolkcityfolk/

BC Seed Suppliers

https://farmfolkcityfolk.ca/find-seeds/bc-seed-suppliers/

The Bauta Family Initiative on Canadian Seed Security

https://www.seedsecurity.ca/en/

News Links

The Seed Farmer Mentorship is open for registrations!

Stay in Touch

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Order Tourne-Sol seeds (Canadian orders only)

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

You've reviewed your field records, gathered feedback from your team, looked at your sales channels, and even listened to your customers. Now it's time to bring it all together.

This is the final episode of the 2025 Season Review Challenge! Let's pull together everything you've learned and turn it into a clear picture of your season.

I'll also share a few examples from Tourne-Sol - including my frustration with cleaning Tithonia seeds and how amazing melons can be when everything goes right.

In this episode, we'll cover:

•  Summarizing insights from all your seed reviews

•  Celebrating your seed successes

•  Learning from your seed challenges

•  Identifying your biggest bottleneck in seed work

•  Getting better with tool solutions, system solutions, and planning solutions

•  Why saying "no" to one thing means saying "yes" to something better

Enjoy the episode — and congrats on completing the Season Review Challenge!

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Episode links

The Seed Farmer Mentorship is open for registrations!

Find our more about Organic Seed Alliance: Regional Seed Summits

Stay in Touch

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Order Tourne-Sol seeds (Canadian orders only)

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Head out to your flower beds and look for those blooms that have dried up and turned brown!

This is another Seedy September minisode to realise that here is seed growing in your garden right now and all you have to do is go and harvest it. 

This episode is about all the opportunities in your cut flower garden.

In this episode, we'll get into …
• How to spot when flower seeds are ready to harvest
• Simple ways to collect and store dried blooms for later cleaning
• Why cross-pollination in flowers is something to embrace, not fear
• Which flowers are the easiest to get seed from
• Tips for cleaning seed and how clean does you seed really need to be

Enjoy the episode!

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Head out to your fields and pick some peppers then cut them open and take out the seeds! 

That's what I"m hoping you do as soon as this episode ends - or better yet, that is what I hope you do while you're listening to this episode.

My goal with this podcast is to get more farmers to grow their own seeds. And September is the perfect time to do that. So this month I'm talking all about the crops that are just waiting there in your garden waiting for you to harvest their seeds whether you planned to or not.

And peppers are the first crop I want you to go pick.

In this episode, we'll get into …

• How likely peppers are to cross pollinate

• What to worry about when growing sweet and hot peppers side by side

• How easy it is to harvest and extract pepper seeds

• The difference between growing pepper seeds for yourself and for sale

Enjoy the episode!

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Adam Alexander is a film maker, writer, and gardener based in Wales. Adam is also the author of the upcoming book Accidental Seed Heroes: Growing A Delicious Food Future for All of Us.

A chance meeting with a delicious pepper in a Ukrainian market in 1989 kicked off his career as a Seed Detective tracking down rare, endangered, culturally important and above all, delicious vegetables from around the world.

In this episode, Adam and I talk about how accidental plant breeding has shaped agriculture for millennia and about the seed heroes who are doing that work these days. We talk about what this looks like for a number of crops including grains, eggplants and peas.

And we wrap up talking about how Adam grows peas for seed in his own garden and why growing seed locally matters for genetic diversity and food security.

 I hope you enjoy this conversation

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Links for this episode

Visit the Seed Detective website & follow on Instagram.

You can also preorder The Accidental Seed Heroes

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Sebastian Aguilar runs Summertime Seed with his wife Kelly Gelino in Dayton, Oregon. This year they're growing 190 varieties on 16 acres.

In this episode, Sebastian shares how they transitioned from vegetable farming to seed production, the challenges and benefits of mechanizing seed cleaning and harvesting, and how they recently launched their own retail seed company.

In the deep dive, Sebastian and I talk about growing onions for seed. We get into growing the bulbs, trellising the bolting plants, and when exactly to cut the seed heads, In addition to all the nitty gritty in between steps.

I hope you enjoy this conversation

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Links for this episode

Visit the Summertime Seed Co.website & follow on Instagram.

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Chris Smith is the founder of the Utopian Seed Project, a hands in the earth non-profit based in Asheville, North Carolina. Chris is also the author of the book the Whole Okra: A Seed To Stem Celebration

Chris grew up in the UK and moved to the U.S. in 2012 with no formal background in farming, But that all changed when he received an okra pod and a gift card to a local seed company as wedding shower gifts

In this episode, Chris shares his journey to become a seed grower and advocate. We talk about his time at Sow True Seed, where he began his deep dive into seed systems and community engagement. This led to launching the Utopian Seed Project to develop a seed system rooted in the Southeast U.S. And later the Appalachian Growers Seed Collective, a farmer-led network focused on growing, adapting, sharing, and selling seeds that know the South

Chris and I talk about the importance of meaningful relationships with seed over time rather than simple rigid preservation, climate resilient crops like taro and chayote, and then we talk a lot about growing okra for seed.

I hope you enjoy this conversation

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Links for this episode

Visit the Utopian Seed Project website & follow on Instagram.

Find Utopian Seed Project on Patreon.

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Patrice is the owner of La Société des Plantes, a farm based seed company in Kamouraska, Quebec.

On his website, Patrice describes La Société des plantes as "une agence de rencontres entre les plantes et les jardiniers" which roughly translates to "a Dating Service for Plants and Gardeners." 

In this episode Patrice shares his journey from city boy to seed farmer, and how being an artist inspired his approach to farming and growing seed.

Patrice and I talk about how he's rooted his business into a rural community with deep historical roots, his philosophy on growing with nature's rhythms, and whether you can really trust the seed longevity charts you find in reference documents.

We finish with growing biennials for seeds. Patrice talks about overwintering lettuce in the field in our Quebec winters, which really impresses me. And then he does a deep dive on growing carrots for seed.

Please note that the episode was recorded in February - there are a few seasonal references where this matters in the conversation.

I hope you enjoy this conversation

Support the Seed Farmer Podcast

http://spreadsheet.farm/supportpodcast

Links for this episode

• Visit La Société des Plantes website & follow on Instagram.

• Watch the trailer for the Sower

Follow the Seed Farmer on instagram

Get my weekly seed newsletter

Get my new book The Seed Farmer

https://danbrisebois.com/seedfarmerbook/

❤️ Thanks for listening!

Jared Zystro is a research and education director at the Organic Seed Alliance. Jared is based in Arcada, California. I invited Jared onto this episode so he can tell you about the Organic Seed Growers Conference in Corvallis, Oregon that is taking place from February 26th to March 1st, 2025. I first went to this conference in 2008 and it was the single most important learning experience to my seed career. I also made so many great friends and contacts that have followed me throughout all my CD endeavors. And I think that you would probably enjoy an experience like this also. So in this episode, Jared and I talk about what is happening at this year's conference and how you can participate not only in person, but also virtually if you can't make it to Corvallis. Jared and I talk about more than just the conference in this episode. We start with Jared's seed story and how it went from working summers on vegetable farms to ultimately getting a PhD in plant breeding and plant genetics from the University of Wisconsin Madison. And we finished with a deep dive into growing quinoa on both a larger commercial scale using a combine and a smaller scale with manual techniques.

Free, Crop Planning for Seed Farmers minicourse: www.spreadsheet.farm/seedcropplan

Follow Dan on Instagram, get his newsletter, & follow Tourne-Sol Cooperative Farm

ORDER Dan's new book, The Seed Farmer, from notillgrowers.com to further support our work!

Folks who support The Seed Farmer Podcast

The goal of the Culinary Breeding Network is to improve communication between plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, chefs, produce buyers and others to improve quality in vegetables, fruits and grains. Learn more and check out upcoming events!

Are you a farmer looking for educational resources in Canada? Check out Young Agrarians! They are a farmer-to-farmer educational resource network for new and young ecological, organic, and regenerative farmers.

This February, join thousands of farmers like you from across the U.S. for three days of community building and farmer-led learning at the 36th annual Marbleseed Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Truelove Seeds is a farm-based seed company offering culturally important and open pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Check out their podcast, Seeds & Their People, wherever you're listening to The Seed Farmer Podcast!

Léa and Ferdinand are two of the twenty-two members of Buzuruna Juzuruna, a 2 ha seed farm and school farm in Lebanon. In this episode, Léa and Ferdinand define the terms "peasant seeds" and "balady seeds" and the challenges of finding local seeds in Lebanon. They also discuss the role of international seed banks in preserving seeds and the importance of reclaiming these seeds and bringing them back to where they originated.

Ferdinand describes the seed house at Buzuruna Juzuruna and how they control temperature and humidity. Léa explains how the seeds and crops they grow are distributed. In the deep dive, we talk about growing cucumbers for seed and how you shouldn't assume every cucumber is a cucumber. Léa and Ferdinand also discuss how they work with ancient wheat varieties.

Free, Crop Planning for Seed Farmers minicourse: www.spreadsheet.farm/seedcropplan

Follow Dan on Instagram, get his newsletter, & follow Tourne-Sol Cooperative Farm

ORDER Dan's new book, The Seed Farmer, from notillgrowers.com to further support our work!

Folks who support The Seed Farmer Podcast

The goal of the Culinary Breeding Network is to improve communication between plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, chefs, produce buyers and others to improve quality in vegetables, fruits and grains. Learn more and check out upcoming events!

Are you a farmer looking for educational resources in Canada? Check out Young Agrarians! They are a farmer-to-farmer educational resource network for new and young ecological, organic, and regenerative farmers.

This February, join thousands of farmers like you from across the U.S. for three days of community building and farmer-led learning at the 36th annual Marbleseed Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Truelove Seeds is a farm-based seed company offering culturally important and open pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Check out their podcast, Seeds & Their People, wherever you're listening to The Seed Farmer Podcast!