Posts by Jeff Wagner

I was first exposed to the world of seed saving through a film, Seed: The Untold Story. The film is so inspiring, and there was a character in the film who shone brightly with so much passion for seeds, talking about returning to winnowing seeds by hand, the way people have done for countless millennia. Later, I met and was mentored by this hero: Bill McDorman. Bill McDorman was a key part of developing our Food Systems Fellowship program. Jeff and Keshet brought a group […]

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To go with the seed story about Desert Dent Corn this month, we wanted to share guide for cooking corn. Nixtamalization is a process of cooking corn in an alkaline solution of water and  hardwood ash or calcium hydroxide/lime. The process breaks down the outer wall of the kernels. The alkaline solution makes some of the nutrients in corn more bioavailable (most notably the amino acid tryptophan, and vitamin B3 (niacin) which is formed as tryptophan is metabolized. The process also makes the corn softer, larger, […]

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One of our mentors, Bill McDorman (interviewed in this month’s recommended podcast), always tells people that to really be in touch with life, you need to grow at last one food plant every year and save its seeds. When you begin to listen to another form of life, meet its needs, and tend to its seeds from generation to generation, you will begin to understand everything that the flourishing of human life requires on such a fragile world. And so, as summer begins here in North […]

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Dear friends, After serving as Groundwork’s executive director since 2018, I’m stepping out of that role in order to create space in my life for other pursuits. I am looking forward to having time for some small sabbaticals, retreats at Buddhist monasteries, and time to devote to writing, media production, curriculum design, and weaving. You’ll continue to see my name on Groundwork’s emails—I’m moving into a part-time role with Groundwork as Communications & Publications Manager. Seeing Groundwork through the first seven years of growth and experimentation has been a dream […]

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Forrest Gillies and Keshet Miller are Groundwork’s new Co-Executive Directors.  A note from Keshet: Hello Groundwork community! I am so excited to be returning to Groundwork and stepping into the new Co-Executive Director role. Back in 2021, amidst a global pandemic, I took a leap of faith and moved to Paonia to help start the Food Systems Fellowship program. The Groundwork team learned so much that first year, and it is incredible to see the growth and change that this organization has undergone in just a […]

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In uncertain times, people turn to gardening. This year, we see similar trends as during the pandemic: boreal springtime coincides with major uncertainties in the world, and seed sales are skyrocketing. As gardeners and soon-to-be-gardeners welcome the spring, we often dream of the future harvest in terms of food. Long-term resilience, local food systems, and connection with place is about more than harvesting just vegetables and fruits. During the garden planning, we also need to consider and plan for seed saving as a key practice. Rowen White, is […]

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I want to write a few words about mental health in local food systems. Casey’s suicide has been overwhelming, partially because of the loss of such a visionary person and partially because in our agricultural community, there are most certainly people who have walked close to that edge and felt alone and unsupported during at their lowest moments. Small-scale organic farmers are being squeezed—crushed rather—between the economic pressures of a hyper-industrialized food system and the risky challenges of growing food for uncertain local markets in […]

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This month, we are honoring Casey Piscura, one of our peers in mountain farming and food systems education. He was the force behind Wild Mountain Seeds and was one of this country’s seed visionaries, experimenting with cutting-edge landrace plant breeding techniques to create new vegetable varieties that are adapted to harsh mountain growing conditions. Those who knew Casey describe him as one of the hardest-working and driven people they’ve ever met, and he was a foundation of Western Colorado’s food and seed systems. Casey died by suicide last month on February 2nd at the […]

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How are great open-pollinated vegetable varieties created? Through years of careful tending, a certain amount of cross-pollination, and careful selection for the plants that thrive. Casey Piscura at Wild Mountain Seeds in Carbondale, Colorado, was a master plant breeder. In our April 2024 newsletter, we shared a piece on his Sunfired Flare tomato, and we’re reprinting an updated version today as a tribute to Casey. Casey was a part of a small collection of people developing and experimenting with a method of plant breeding known […]

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Seeds have stories. Sometimes those stories get lost. People forget. Somebody who knew where the seeds came from might hand a few to a friend, saying “these are great, you should try them.” And in an instant, the history of the seeds is broken, forgotten. I bought a packet of Za Hara eggplant seeds from the great seed stewards at Sand Hill Preservation Center. Sand Hill has a lot on their hands, stewarding hundreds of varieties of rare seeds with the goal of getting small seed […]

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