Heartseed Farm in Nictuax is where we grow the majority of our seeds, and where the seed headquarters are located. I’ve lived here since 2006, when as a teenager my family moved here from Vancouver Island. It’s a very special piece of land, with a patchwork of small fields surrounded by woodlands, ponds and brooks.
The first few years here, we cleared the old fields that were growing back into forest, created the start of our gardens, and planted an orchard of fruit and nut trees. The idea of seed saving had already taken root in my head when we made the move, having become inspired to grow and save rare seeds by Dan Jason when we lived on the west coast. I didn’t initially plan to create a seed company, but my obsession with seed saving kept growing to keep pace with my rapidly expanding gardens.
Two years later, at 16, I had grown enough seeds that I might as well offer some. I put together our first catalogue, for the 2009 season, with about 100 varieties. Mostly peas and beans, and without a single tomato if you can believe it!
Now a decade later, the gardens have grown to about 2 acres, we’ve built several greenhouses and all those fruit trees have come into production. We grow an average of about 300 varieties for seed every year, plus multiple fun breeding projects on the side.
In 2015 the rest of my family moved to the South Shore, and the farm transitioned into being the home for a group of friends and I. We adopted the name Heartseed Farm, after the heartseed vine which we grow every year.
-Owen Bridge, Dec. 2016
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