seedkeeping:

Do you have any ideas for how Roughwood Seed Collection can reach our fundraising goal? William Woys Weaver’s private collection of nearly 4,000 rare, endangered, and beautiful varieties of heirloom seeds has been around for over 80 years. It is now at risk of being lost unless we get startup money to create and grow our small seed business so that it can support itself and so we can get these important seeds into many hands! Are there any specific people, organizations, foundations, or platforms who you think would be excited to promote and save this historic and important collection? Please please let us know! We need lots of seed sales, lots of small donations, and/or some major ones for us to continue this work. Thanks!

Indiegogo link here!  Buy our seeds here!

More info about the collection, from William Woys Weaver himself:

“The Roughwood Seed Collection, which now comprises about 4,000 varieties of heirloom food plants, was begun informally in 1932 by my grandfather H. Ralph Weaver (1896-1956). During the Great Depression, when food was scarce for many households, he set out to feed his family from a one-acre plot in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Since he had been working on the Weaver family genealogy, my grandfather used his Lancaster County family connections to acquire heirloom seeds that had been grown in the Dutch Country for many generations. His passion for rare old-time varieties snowballed so that by the 1940s he managed to create one of the finest kitchen gardens in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Among the many frequent visitors to his garden was West Chester folk artist Horace Pippin from whom he acquired many rare peppers (such as the Fish Pepper, Pippin’s Golden Honey, and Buena Mulata).

My grandfather’s untimely death brought an abrupt end to his chapter of the Roughwood Seed Collection story. Some 10 years later, while a student at the University of Virginia, I discovered his seed collection at the bottom of my grandmother’s deep freezer. My grandfather knew that by freezing seeds they could be kept for a long time, so by this stroke of luck, many of his most valuable seeds were still viable when I began to tinker with them. By the mid-1970s I brought most of his original garden back under cultivation.
In 1979, I moved the seed collection to Devon, Pennsylvania. Since the collection had no official name, I dubbed it the Roughwood Seed Collection after the Victorian name of the old house in which I now live. Since moving the collection to Devon, it has grown dramatically over the years; many are unique and not found in other seed collections.

Highly talented seedsman and garden specialist (and musician), Owen Taylorcame to work for me and in 2014 became the Roughwood Seed Collection Manager. He has given the collection its long-needed re-cataloging and computerization, thus we are now able to organize successful workshops on heirlooms, seed saving, and even cooking with heirlooms. With the collaboration of several select organic growers, we are now planting large-scale GMO-free seed crops at Kutztown University, Fields Edge Farm in Lancaster County (Twitter: Alex Wenger @thefieldsedge), and Hill Creek Farm in Chester County (HillCreekFarmPA.com). Our rare Limited Edition seeds are available for sale via the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in Mansfield, Missouri andHudson Valley Seed Library in Accord, NY.”