THE COLLECTIVE: SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE, with MIKE BOLLINGER
Seeds are essential not just to our gardens but to life on this planet across time and space. Seeds and humans have partnered since humans have walked on two feet. This week we celebrate the history and agency of individuals saving seeds in conversation with Mike Bollinger, Executive Director of Seed Savers Exchange.
Seed Savers Exchange has been an iconic non-profit organization in our Garden world for more than 50 years. Founded in 1975 by Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy, SSE is one of the largest non-governmental seed banks in the world, focused on preserving open-pollinated, heirloom crop seeds and education.
Mike Bollinger is the Executive Director of Seed Saver's Exchange, and he’s with us this week to share more about the Seed Saver's journey
PS: Mike is also host of Seed Savers Exchange’s new podcast, Sowing Connections.
Listen in!
Follow Mike online:
and on Instagram:
@seed_savers_exchange
All photos courtesy of Mike Boullinger, all rights reserved.
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JOIN US again next week: Charity Stowe is founder and co-owner of Herstoric Development, Nectar Coffeehouse, and Milkweed Commons pocket park - a connected, micro-ecosystem development of emerging local businesses and beauty in South Bend Indiana’s Monroe Park neighborhood She joins Cultivating Place host Ben Futa this week to share more!
That's right here, next week. Listen in!
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Thinking out loud this week...
Hey it’s Jennifer –
It was when I was writing What We Sow that I was finally clear on the fact that while Earth, Wind, Water and Air are the four primary Elements, it takes the seed-bearing plants to really make this planet not only habitable but pleasurable for us as humans. Speaking recently for the American Horticultural Therapy Association’s annual conference, I was reminded that while our lives are made possible and pleasurable as a result of the elements and the staggeringly diverse and beautiful plant kingdom, we as a species would not actually thrive here without one another.
The Collective.
Mike Bollinger reminds us of this over and over again as he traces his own journey and that of Seed Savers Exchange. When we save seeds, we save relations, he says. And in that he encapsulates all of the relations that really matter: with the past, with the future, with the plants and animals, our planet mates, and with ourselves and one another. Those are all relations worth saving. Start right in our own gardens and plant tendings.
And without each other growing forward, we could not be a keystone species. A species is not one individual gardener, it is all of us as Gardeners that are the key.
Can you see and feel that in your garden and place? If you feel like sharing examples, you know how – send us an email with your thoughts: info@cultivatingplace.org. We’d love to share them with our collective.
We kicked off our annual #100daysinplace adventure this past week, we will leave registration open through November 15th for anyone that might want to join in a little late – we’d love to have you!
For more information – head on over to this week’s show notes under the Listen tab at Cultivatingplace.org! How and how well we know our places is how well we grow them – and grow ourselves. Good stuff…
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The CP team includes producer and engineer Matt Fidler, with weekly tech and web support from Angel Huracha, weekly communications support by Sheila Stern and Carley Bruckner, and regular hosting by Founder, Jennifer Jewell, as well as Abra Lee in Atlanta, Georgia, and Ben Futa in South Bend, Indiana. We’re based on the traditional and present homelands of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of the Chico Rancheria. Original theme music is by Ma Muse..
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