I sit on my front porch with the hot sun setting, a quart jar of ice water melting quickly, and silver bowls of carrot seed heads, nesting critters who found a suitable home in them, piled high. These are the days that I sit and meditate on words at the forefront of my mind, from things Big Bear brought up in the stream, to philosophical or spiritual discussions from Bear Island chats. This moment of contemplation was “be fruitful and multiply”.
The action of seed-saving gives physical meaning to the Bible verse we hear with every Big Bear stream.
God blessed this realm with this blessing of growing in love and number. That fruitfulness speaks in all living things according to His good nature and is evident in the multiplication of seeds.
I planted those tiny carrot seeds in the Spring of 2019 and waited anxiously in 2020 for their floral heads to turn. From around 12-15 carrots I left to seed, I got thousands of schizocarps. It is incredible to think that around 66 seeds in 2019 multiplied into a bounty in 2020.
I have been passionate about gardening and food preservation for a long time. The hobbies go hand-in-hand. This became unmistakable in 2020. God was doing a beautiful thing to awaken the population that years of me shouting at people to homestead or garden could not do. In my area, families were building and expanding gardens. No amount of breath from my mouth could move a population in this direction. It is only the gentle grace of God who can and was doing this right before my very eyes. My former despair-ridden prepper heart leapt for joy at His magnificence. I could see God was at work.
However, with so much work to be done, I could not remain in awe. I busily added to my garden as well and was ready to plant. I went to purchase seeds from my favorite supplier only to see “out-of-stock” on seeds I hoped to purchase for my garden. The new gardeners had burdened the supply with increasing demand.
My awareness of the supply chain fragility is how Beartaria Seed Savers was born. Seeing the numerous new gardeners, I knew that my dream of saving seeds could help our cherished community of like-minded people. I worked for many years with procurement and logistics. To me, it was even more apparent the fragile nature of the system and the situation we will be facing. I liken this to Joseph after he was sold as a slave to Egypt. God gifted him with dream interpretation. He interpreted Pharaoh’s dream warning as seven years of plenty and seven years of famine and was promoted to a top administrator by Pharaoh to preserve food in the years of plenty. We still have it relatively easy at the moment and preparation is learning skills like seed-saving to be ready for anything.
Beartaria Seed Savers was established for bear-centered seed saving and distribution. The operation works at this time with a “freely as ye have received, freely give” mentality. Using barter and charity as a means to continue to grow. The vision is bears taking seeds and practicing saving them to get acquainted with the process or to plant them and share with their neighbors seeds or starts to build social wealth in their local community. The seed inventory, that at this time is freely available to those who want to plant these varieties in their gardens or have run into the “out-of-stock” issues like I had last year. The inventory includes seeds I have saved and seeds from bears who have seeds to distribute to other bears freely as well. I welcome all bears to send in their saved excess seeds (heirloom varieties preferred) with notes of what they liked about the plant and history if they have it. These are updated as bear seed donations come in on my IG (@copperbearette) and on the Beartaria Times app (@Copperbear).
The Beartaria Seed Ambassador program was designed for bears who are experienced with seed saving and have some garden area they are willing to use to grow and collect seeds. These seeds are issued from my personal seed inventory for the ambassador to start one (or more) plants from the variety they chose. My only request from this is that the seeds are saved and returned for further distribution to other bears for following years.
Faebear designed the beautiful logo which will don the seed packets and merchandise going forward. The goals in 2021 are to build a larger seed library and a website. Beartaria Seed Savers also has a merch store featuring hoodies, T-shirts, and accessories at https://teespring.com/stores/beartaria-seed-savers. To contact Beartaria Seed Savers, please email copperbearette@gmail.com for requests, donations, or other ways you can help.
