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