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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (March 30, 2016)
2016 Spring Home & Garden Territorial Seed Co. builds an international brand locally market. There are 20 full-time and 25 seasonal employees locally, strategic alliances with universities and European plant breeders and a zillion worms making compost and plant teas. Plant the seed, they say...or buy, grow, harvest and clean, store, catalog, package, sprout and love each seed and take a capital-O Opportunity to grow your dreams with Territorial Seed Com- pany, Cottage Grove, Oregon. CYAN MAGENTA Did you know that the average distance any supermarket-bound vegetable or fruit travels to the store is 800 miles? But a gardener’s own fruits and vegetables move from the garden to the table within minutes, with every ounce of nutritional value intact. Tom and Julie’s fi rst Territorial Seed catalogs offered a fresh-from- the garden look and alternative, as Tom focused on expanding selections of customers’ favorites; more tomatoes (from 15 varieties to 75), then sweet peas, garlic, year-round lettuces and sun- fl owers for the birds. After the regional catalog came a national catalog and a Canadian catalog. Their Winter Garden Catalog, fi rst published in 1988, remains the only winter garden catalog in the United States. In 1987, Tom and Julie invested in 44 acres for trial grounds at London Springs south of Cottage Grove Lake. Each year Territorial’s research garden staff grows and evaluates thousands of varieties for best taste, Northwest hardiness, and good germination. More recently they began reclaiming older, favorite vegetable varieties sometimes shelved by their seed sup- pliers. Harvesting their very tiny product has been their biggest challenge. In Lorane, they dried the bean pods on ground tarps and win- nowed the seed from the pods by hand. Then they tried grinding tomatoes in a garden variety chipper-shredder and fl uming the seeds out, similar to panning for gold. But seeds still keep their age-old secrets of survival, and Territori- al’s seed saving techniques range from natural fermentation to the newest processors. Today they grow almost 20% of the seed they offer, especially lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash. Currently they fi nd themselves in good compa- ny, ‘’capital-O Organics’’, excited about taking leadership in advising the evolution of organic agriculture from a movement into a mainstream YELLOW BLACK Big things come in small packages 11 Mark J Mootz CCB#74541 PO Box 825 • Cottage Grove, OR 97424 SHOP LOCAL! WE CAN SAVE YOU $$$$ Ph. 541-942-6921 Fax 541-942-6921 e-mail mootzmj@gmail.com www.markmootzconstruction.com 615 Main Street • Cottage Grove • 541-942-8711 homesteadcg.com
