Description
Join us for a Field Day at Purple Sage Farms in Middleton, Idaho, followed by a 2-day Seed School in Boise!
Registration fee helps to offset food costs. Scholarships are available. Please email casey.snakeriverseeds@gmail.com if you are in need of full or partial financial assistance. No one turned away for inability to pay.
Saturday, June 28 - Monday, June 30, 2025
Field Day:
Saturday, June 28th 4-7pm
Purple Sage Farms in Middleton, Idaho
Highlights of this tour include:
- High-tunnel produced greens, herbs, and seed crops
- GAP certified kitchen and state-of-the-art processing facility
- Pollinator habitat hedgerow featuring native perennials
- Pasture-raised lambs
- And more!
Field day will include a taco bar supper and bonfire with live music afterward. Kids welcome!
About Purple Sage Farms:
Tim Sommer and his wife, Tamara Sloviaczek, founded Purple Sage Farms in 1989 where they cultivated a family, enriched the community, and became vital and respected leaders in the organic foods industry. For over 30 years, Purple Sage Farms has specialized in growing a wide range of organic herbs, edible flowers, greens, and vegetables. Today, the Sommer family grows over 250 varieties of crops ranging from the familiar to the obscure, whether they are culinary, medicinal, or both.
Purple Sage Farms is an award-winning family farm, recognized for persistent and long-term advocacy for Idaho's locally and organically grown food system. Purple Sage Farms became one of the first to be certified organic in Idaho. They are dedicated to contributing seed to SRSC because they believe that a huge part of being sustainable is being self-reliant by growing your own seed, or growing seed for your local community, which keeps genes and dollars where they can do the most good.
Seed School:
Sunday, June 29th & Monday, June 30th 9am-3pm
Main location: Ada County Extension Office
Whether you’re looking to increase your own self-sufficiency or to add seed production to your market garden or farm offerings, there has never been a better time to relearn this vital part of our agricultural heritage.
The two-day Seed School will cover a range of basics to grow high-quality organic seeds, including:
The two-day Seed School will cover a range of basics to grow high-quality organic seeds, including:
- Seed biology
- Flowers and pollination
- Growing seeds
- Harvesting and processing seeds
- Seed storage
- Seed literacy
- Wild seed harvesting
- Organic weed, pest, and disease control in seed crops
- Adding seed production to your market garden or farm
- Selection and on-farm crop improvement
- Opportunities for selling your seeds
This seed school will also feature a visit to nearby SRSC urban growers Quel Ranch, as well as to Draggin' Wing High Desert Nursery, where we will learn about native seed production and wild seed collecting. We will also get hands-on practice threshing and winnowing seeds at Snake River Seed Cooperative's seed cleaning headquarters!
Questions about this event can be directed to casey.snakeriverseeds@gmail.com
This event is supported through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP). TOPP is a program of the USDA Organic Transition Initiative and is administered by the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) National Organic Program (NOP).”
Know a farm interested in transitioning to organic? Reach out to Hanna, an Organic Transition Specialist, at TOPP@tilth.org
Know a farm interested in transitioning to organic? Reach out to Hanna, an Organic Transition Specialist, at TOPP@tilth.org