Story by Pat Rubin
for success
Plant breeder’s work helps ensure bountiful gardens worldwide
Patty Buskirk can hold an entire vegetable garden in her hands. In one fist, she can clench hundreds of tomato plants. Ditto enough f lowers to fill an entire neighborhood of homes. Truly, the seeds she holds represent the hopes and dreams for a bountiful season for home gardeners around the globe. The California native is the owner and chief plant breeder of Seeds by Design, a well-respected seed supply company with offices in the rural Sacramento Valley communities of Maxwell and Willows.
In its nearly 27 years, the business has developed a reputation for producing high-quality seed. “It’s just like being a farmer, except we focus on seeds,” she said. At home in the Sacramento Valley Buskirk is in good company in the northern part of the Sacramento Valley. The area comprises about 50,000 acres dedicated to seed production, as well as
more than 1 million acres of rice, almonds, walnuts and other row crops. Buskirk uses about 1,000 acres for her operations. “Nowhere else on Earth is there s u c h a c o l l e c t i on o f s e e d companies and research stations, be c au s e t he Med i t e r r a ne a n climate, fertile soils, dependable
“It’s just like being a farmer, except we focus on seeds.” —PATTY BUSKIRK Owner, Seeds by Design
Buskirk describes Seeds by Design as a boutique breeding and production company, and say s it a ims to ser ve home gardeners, preserve tried-and- true varieties and also develop new varieties along the way. She
founded the company in 1994 and proudly points out many of her employees have been with her 15 years or more. “When I started Seeds by Design, the home gardening seed trade wasn’t of fering a quality product,” she said. “Someone needed to look out for home gardeners and make sure they could depend on what was going into the seed packets, to make sure they were labeled correctly and the seed would grow.”
weather and long growing season in the Sacramento Valley are perfect for growing seeds,” she explained. Her crops include squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, chard, watermelons, peppers, salad greens, sunf lowers and herbs. Some are heirlooms, while others are breeder-created hybrid varieties. Seeds By Design produces enough vegetable and f lower seeds each year to almost fill two 30,000-square- foot warehouses.
Home gardeners near and far benefit from Patty Buskirk’s specialty: growing seeds for seed companies around the world. Her crops include, clockwise from bottom, tomatoes, kale, pumpkins, eggplant and peppers.
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