Carol Deppe Varieties

People Behind the Seeds
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Carol Deppe Varieties

Carol Deppe is one of a handful of seed breeders who have held on to the ideal of corn as a staff of life rather than an industrial commodity. Her book, The Resilient Gardener, has shown many of us how to secure a food supply for ourselves and our communities despite limitations of space, disability, infrastructure or climate.

After earning a PhD in Genetics from Harvard and teaching at universities, Carol opted out of the academic world to pursue independent public-domain plant breeding. Carol’s priority is breeding food crops that reliably produce a complete diet even under difficult conditions, and will allow us to thrive for the next thousand years.

We’re delighted to carry these seeds. All of the corns, beans, and squash are her original varieties and she has pledged them to the Open Source Seed Initiative.
Cascade Glaze Collards were a breeding collaboration by Carol Deppe, Alan Kapular, and Jeff McCormack.
Gronninger kale is an old Dutch heirloom that Carol recommends but did not breed. Compared to other kales, it is better adapted to spring planting, and to the densely-planted "Eat-all" method that Carol details in her book The Tao of Vegetable Gardening. She grew our seed.
You can read an interview with Carol here.
You can see all of our OSSI seeds here: OSSI Open-Source Seeds
My blog post on getting the most year-round food from your garden space is here.