Twin Oaks Community Seeds

Twin Oaks Community Seeds grows heirloom and open-pollinated seeds mainly for Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (run by our sister community Acorn), as well as for Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri and Fedco Seeds in Maine.

The business started with a 3/4 acre seed garden in 2006 and has grown to four acres with a crew of eight people. We grow about 50 varieties each year in three separate gardens (to maintain necessary isolation distances). Crops include southern peas, okra, perennial onions, peanuts, tomatoes, peppers, winter and summer squash, eggplant, corn, cucumbers, bush and pole beans, watermelon, muskmelon, sunflowers, sorghum and cosmos. August and September are our busiest times, when there are tons of all kinds of vegetables to pick, ferment, process, dry, thresh and winnow.

We are certified organic. We maintain good fertility with cover crops and waste from the Twin Oaks tofu business (okara and whey). We rely on scuffle hoes, wheel hoes and a Farmall cultivating tractor to control weeds, and are also doing some promising experiments this year with reduced tillage systems.