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Homecoming
Seeds

Homecoming Seeds grows bio-regionally adapted open pollinated vegetable, flower, and herb seeds. We are a farm-based seed company – meaning most seeds in our catalog are grown on our home farm. If not grown by us, they’re grown by farmers in our bioregion who are also committed to strengthening our local seed system and adapting plants to our climate.
We make the commitment to continually improve the resilience of the plants we steward. This happens through patient and careful selection for traits such as early maturity, cold hardiness, pest and disease resistance while also always prioritizing excellent flavors and productive plants. At Homecoming Seeds we grow vegetable varieties that are culturally meaningful to our family and we encourage our growers to grow varieties that are culturally meaningful to them.
The name Homecoming Seeds is inspired by the idea that being in relationship with plants can serve as a spiritual and cultural homecoming of sorts, helping you remember who and what you truly are. So here’s to remembering your home among the seeds and soil.

Our Home At
Flytree Farm

Flytree Farm is the name of our home farm in Northfield, Vermont. When we reference “we”, “us”, “our” we are talking about Charlie, Madi, Fia, Caddis, and Sequoia. Charlie is the farmer and primary operator, Madi helps with just about everything while also providing off-farm income, Fia is our daughter, and Caddis and Sequoia are our two dogs. Most seeds in our catalog are grown on Flytree Farm, but some are also grown by farmer friends of ours.
Because Homecoming Seeds represents more than just our home farm, we wanted a way to differentiate our business name from our farm name. It would be a mouthful to have to say Homecoming Seeds at Flytree Farm, so we’ve kept it simple by primarily referencing Homecoming Seeds. But just know that our home farm is called Flytree Farm. This name is inspired by our two dogs Caddis (fly) and Sequoia (tree) who represent our family beginnings.

Seed
Beginnings

Charlie’s seed story began while he was earning his doctorate at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Through connections with research and farming community he met an elder named John Austin who shared an interest in the tomatoes Charlie was growing. John invited Charlie to check out his garden, which were legendary in the valley – especially his tomatoes. Charlie and John hit it off immediately and Charlie began visiting him weekly. In the summer they’d garden together and in the winter they would talk in his basement about his seed collection. They became best friends. Charlie learned many things from John, and not just about seeds – they talked about life, the universe, and everything.
John had three main focus areas to his seed work. He saved seeds for bioregional adaptation. He curated the Tinsley House gardens at the Museum of the Rockies where he saved seeds that were historically accurate for that time. And he stewarded varieties of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers that are native to the tribes in the Northern Great Plains. He did his best to recreate Buffalo Bird Woman’s gardens.

Finding Ourselves
in Seeds

Through John’s work stewarding native seeds, Charlie and John were connected to the native community who were establishing the Montana Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative. A dedicated group of native and non-native students planted the seeds John had been stewarding in an effort to rematriate the corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers that John had been caring for. These experiences helped Charlie begin to understand the importance of the stories that seeds carry with them.
Seeds and people are intertwined, and plants are more than just food, medicine, or beauty- they are a throughline to people’s culture and ancestry. It was through stewarding seeds that were indigenous to native communities in the Northern Great Plains that Charlie began to ask: who are my peoples and what plants did they grow? Not having grown up with this knowledge or a connection to his ancestry, Charlie noticed that he felt culturally untethered. And so began the journey of learning about his human and plant ancestors. There has been much grief and much joy in reconnecting with these stories and rekindling a sense of belonging to a lineage of people and plants.

Onward

Homecoming Seeds catalog is built from John Austin’s collection of bio-regionally adapted seeds. This is part of what makes Homecoming Seeds so special. John has spent over 45 years selecting for cold hardiness, early maturity, and resilience to the challenging growing conditions found in the Montana’s Gallatin Valley. He was legendary for how productive his gardens were so early in the year. While central Vermont has many similarities to the growing in the northern Rockies, it also has many differences, namely: soil types, precipitation patterns, and humidity levels. I expect some varieties to translate well to Vermont while others may not. We’re so grateful to John for his lifetime of work stewarding seeds and for being so open and generous with his seeds. I am also working with other long time seeds savers in Vermont and New England to build a catalog that is most expressive of our place as possible.
In a sense, our seed stories have led to a cultural and spiritual homecoming that have immensely enriched our lives. We are continuing to learn and carry the stories of the past forward to the present day and to learn how to be a good relative to the plants, people, and land we are in relationship with now. Knowing and carrying the stories of each seed and the people who stewarded them is so important to building community and developing a sense of belonging. We’re so grateful to seeds for making us more whole, reminding us of who we are, and inspiring us to reweave the present moment into something meaningful that future generations can build on.
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