Peace Seedlings Zinnia Spiral.
Dylana Kapuler and Mario Dibenedetto in the Zinnia Spiral.
Peace Seedlings is the next generation of Peace Seeds, formed by Dylana Kapuler and Mario DiBenedetto. They have continued to grow and have improved upon varieties developed in the earlier generation of Peace Seeds. Peas, corn, zinnias, sunflowers and marigolds as well as unique tomatoes such as centiflors are areas they continue to develop. Andean vegetables are among the unique offerings, including incredible varieties of yacon, oca and mashua. Dylana and Mario have a mail order seed list, accessed on their blog: peaceseedlingsseeds.blogspot.com as well as offer seeds, starts and stunning organikally grown cut flowers at the Corvallis Saturday Farmers Market. They have also branched out to creating willow works, making living fences, shelters, and woven baskets. They have an ongoing germplasm collection of willows in addition to a growing collection of roses, peonias, roseaceous fruit trees, citrus, dahlias, gladioli, irises and hydrangeas.
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Dylana Kapuler with Geranium Kiss Tomato.
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Quotes from the book Planting a Future, Profiles from Oregon's New Farm Movement, by John Clark Vincent:
"Some people were surprised when we didn't just take over Peace Seeds," explains Mario, "because we people knew Mushroom was at a place where he was thinking about retiring. But he didn't want to stop doing everything, he just didn't want to continue selecting all these varieties he had developed. So we started taking that on. As we did that, we also got more involved with our own breeding projects, and naturally since we were working with Mushroom, our work was focused on public domain plant breeding."
"Which needs to happen for the sake of adaptation," adds Dylana. "The climate is changing, so seeds need to be selected based on where they're located and how they adapt to those changes, as well as a number of other considerations like nutritional makeup. My dad's past work needs to be continued and built on. By doing that, we're freeing him up to focus on his latest inspirations, which include things like native food plants that are overlooked or neglected. He's inspired by species that are hard to get your hands on...that you have to wild collect and learn how to grow so they're not at the mercy of who knows what bulldozer."
"Some people were surprised when we didn't just take over Peace Seeds," explains Mario, "because we people knew Mushroom was at a place where he was thinking about retiring. But he didn't want to stop doing everything, he just didn't want to continue selecting all these varieties he had developed. So we started taking that on. As we did that, we also got more involved with our own breeding projects, and naturally since we were working with Mushroom, our work was focused on public domain plant breeding."
"Which needs to happen for the sake of adaptation," adds Dylana. "The climate is changing, so seeds need to be selected based on where they're located and how they adapt to those changes, as well as a number of other considerations like nutritional makeup. My dad's past work needs to be continued and built on. By doing that, we're freeing him up to focus on his latest inspirations, which include things like native food plants that are overlooked or neglected. He's inspired by species that are hard to get your hands on...that you have to wild collect and learn how to grow so they're not at the mercy of who knows what bulldozer."