Our annual plant buyer, Liane, and I had the opportunity to tour their gorgeous farm and we want to share it with you. The 10-acre farm on Whidbey Island grows vegetables and flowers that furnish some of the best restaurants on the island and provide 100% organic seeds to local nurseries (Swansons included!) so you can grow PNW-friendly varieties successfully at home.

While looking for a retirement business, owners Doug and Jeni Blackburn saw a growing desire for food that is grown. Located in Richwood on approximately four acres of land, Fresh Harvest Farm is devoted to growing pesticide free produce using aquaponics. We can’t carry seeds from every company we admire but we try our best to find a combination of PNW-tested, locally-produced, sustainably-grown seeds.ĭeep Harvest Farm is one of the places we know we can find extraordinary seeds. Fresh Harvest Farm was established in 2011 as the first large scale aquaponic farm in Ohio. Seeds, of course, but beyond that… What goes into creating that seed packet? Did the seeds come from a plant grown in the PNW or from somewhere else in the country? From a small farm or a large-scale growing operation? How long did it take for the plant to flower and produce seeds? How easy was it to harvest the seeds? Was it grown organically?Īt Swansons, we’re always pondering questions like this to make sure that the seeds we offer grow into successful harvests for our customers while also helping to sustain local growers we trust. How many times have you thought about what’s really in a seed packet?

Harvest farm new life program details