Just a quick to note to let you all know our yams are ready for sale. Limited stock sorry to say. We find these heritage yams to be richer in flavour and sweetness from the ones available in supermarkets. Our favourite for flavour is Henry’s Yellow yam, but our three colours together are a lovely mix of earthy sweetness!  

Spring has well and truly arrived. It feels like everything is moving quickly this season, so do not delay getting crops underway. I am busy pricking out our first seed sowing at the moment. If you have not started yet, fear not, still plenty of time to get seed sowing for tones of things! See below for our recommendations on what to sow now.

The best all round day for seed sowing in September, is the 22nd. Moon opposition Saturn is the best constellation configuration for strong form and structure for your plants. We have been using it for years now as our main seed sowing day each month. We have the times listed on our website for the whole year, so you can find out the best day each month to sow seeds. As with any celestial moment, the exact time is too intense energetically, so we sow seeds in the energies leading up to the moment.

A huge thank you must go out to Kiersten-Anna, our star employee who not only has held together all the needs of the garden, but has also since arriving taken on the responsibilities in the office that make sure you all get speedy replies from your queries and orders. To top it off, she gets on so well with our daughter, she has helped with childcare while I get on with all of my office responsibilities. Oh, and did I mention she is a great cook and has an outstanding sense of humour! Teamwork makes the dream work folks, and we are grateful to have such a fantastic team.

And please let’s take a moment to finally introduce Kiersten-Anna to you, by sharing a little bit about her history with food and gardening and how she came to want to work here at Setha’s Seeds:

“My Mama has influenced me hugely in my love of food and organics; I grew up with a strong focus on healthy and organic food in our home. After I left school, I worked in Europe in a vegetarian hotel which had organic gardens providing the kitchens with produce. I loved this experience immensely, and it taught me so much, fully forming my love of cooking and hospitality.

Back in Dunedin, I continued to work in hospitality, ending up in a beautiful bagel shop that was committed to local and high-quality ingredients. While working there, my dear friend and flat mate inspired me to come out into the garden with her and do as I please in it. We had such a wonderful home with a shared love for vegetables (and wine). I found going out into the garden to be very calming and restorative, especially after a busy day in the kitchen.

One of my favourite things about the garden is that even if I abandoned her for weeks, when I came back out, she would always be growing something for me, and it would be just what I needed. My partner at the time suggested I try to work in gardens, which opened my mind to different possibilities.

Working for Setha and Roddy is a joy and a great privilege. Every day feels as though I am absorbing new wisdom and knowledge. Whether it is from the garden, their family, or simply from living a “quieter’’ country life. Finding myself working for Setha’s Seeds feels like I am exactly where I am meant to be, and something that was a part of my life story long before I knew it to be so. I am excited to see in Spring for the second time around!”

An Invitation

We would like to continue to extend an invitation for community here on the farm.

ince last year when we first put the call out, we have had a family join us here on the land along with Kiersten-Anna. It has been such a joyous experience to have more people here and see the benefits we all gain from living together.

Please see our website for more information and let anyone you think may be interested know about these opportunities.

Another spin around the sun and here we sit at the start of a whole new growing season in our gardens! The perfect time to dream about what you want to grow this season. What have you learned from last season, what will you do differently, and what did you implement this season that really worked!

Gardening is such an interactive experience, and so rewarding when things you try create wholesome food for you and your family.

We had a pretty amazing season in part due to the unusually large amount of rainfall we had throughout the entire season. Such lush and large plants blossomed everywhere due to the extra moisture, and perhaps we focused more on other things that helped with this since we were not so busy keeping the water on! And, of course at the end of the season the extra rain brought challenges. After 20 plus years growing, we still have flops along with our growing successes. Lettuces were a bit of a disappointment for us, as at the exact time the seed was all beautifully ripening, big rain! So, we had smaller harvests for our lettuces this year. No matter how much experience you have, you can’t win on all your crops.

We have a big change in the way we bring you our new range to you all for the season. After careful consideration and communication through our social media survey, we have decided to not issue a catalogue this year! Fear not, we still have our trusty ol’ website fully updated with everything fresh and ready for your gardens!

What we found when we did a bit of market research and asked you all, most people, used the website to make their purchases and we had been seeing this in our statistics from our sales coming through. So, please do get in contact if this new shift is going to be prohibitive for you ordering from us. We can still find a way to share what we have on offer with you, if you cannot access our website for some reason. We value all of our customers regardless of how they order from us, so do not hesitate to email if you need a list of our products sent out.

Here it is!

Our 10th Anniversary Range of Seeds (I got it wrong last year when I thought it was our 8th catalogue!!!) all listed on our fully updated website!

It is always such a mad rush it seems to get all of this information together at this time of year. We have done it again, all our seeds have been germination tested, we have crafted variety descriptions for the 25 new varieties you will find this year (phew!)! And as always, we have some old favourites back again. Please take note that there are some changes with the number of seeds per packet this year. We are selling seeds faster than we can grow them at this stage (not that we are complaining 😊) and we are doing our best to offer the largest selection to as many people as possible at the best price we can manage. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.

In honour of our 10 year Birthday, we are offering a Discount Code to all our faithful Newsletter readers. Grab 10 seed packets or more and use the code ANNIVERSARY10 at checkout in the month of July and enjoy a 10% off your order total on us. Gifts are worth giving and you have all earned it. Thanks for sticking with us, and here is to the next 10 years!

Shop now!

As always, it has taken a lot of work to get all this together and now our family needs a wee break. We will close our office and dispatch system until July 25th, 2022. This will give us time to get things ready to send out as we print and pack all our own seed packets on site. All orders received during our break will be dispatched from July 25th, 2022. We are sorry for the delay, but hope you appreciate our need for some down time. All emails received will also be held until our office reopens on July 25th, 2022. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Here it is! Our 8th Catalogue for your browsing pleasure and our fully updated website!

It is always such a mad rush it seems to get all of this information together for you all at this time of year. We have done it again, all our seeds have been germination tested, we have crafted variety descriptions for the 10 new varieties you will find this year!And we have some old favourites back again.

A huge thank you must go out to our designer Giles who lovingly creates our PDF catalogue each year and to Rebecca our admin assistant who has helped to update the website! Teamwork makes the dream work folks, and we are grateful to have such a fantastic team around us.

It has taken a lot of work to get all this together and now our family needs a week break. We will close our office and dispatch system until July 19th, 2021. This will give us time to get things ready to send out. We print all our own packets on site, so happy printing for us! All orders received during our break will be dispatched from July 19th, 2021. We are sorry for the delay, but hope you appreciate our need for some down time. All emails received will also be held until our office reopens on July 19th, 2021. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

If you read our welcome letter in our catalogue this will be a little bit of a repeat but we would like to include our invitation for community and a job opportunity that has recently gone out on social media. Please see below what we are offering and please share with anyone who you think may be interested.

Our Story

We are a family of 4, Roddy, Setha, River Rose (our 4-year-old daughter) and Suchitra (Setha’s mother), living on our rural farmlet in Tutira, Hawke’s Bay, a 45 min drive to downtown Napier. For the last eight years we have been running our small family business selling heritage seeds called Setha’s Seeds. We are committed to an organic land-based lifestyle focused on healthy soil, healthy food, healthy people principles. We work with nature as a partner in all we do on the farm. We honour the natural cycles of the seasons celebrating with friends at equinoxes and solstices. We are currently developing our 22 acres into a regenerative landscape by implementing food forests, native tree plantings and holistic grazing management practices for our Irish Dexter cows. We have several new projects we would like to get underway in the upcoming years to more fully develop our education arm of our business and bring more people to our farm to learn about sustainable and regenerative living models. We also love music and bought this farm from friends who had already started hosting music festivals on site. We have continued to develop our events space and look forward to growing this artistic cultural passion as well. 
We are currently seeking help and community here on the land. We see several opportunities available and welcome being contacted by all interested parties.

Job Opportunity:

We would love to offer a part time job to someone with a family or on their own that is seeking to live rurally on an organic/regenerative farmlet in Tutira, Hawke’s Bay. Of course, we are happy to consider applicants wanting to live off site and working here with us, but due to our distance from a city centre we know it may be more practical to have accommodation available, see below for more details.

~ Part time employment in our heritage seed gardens at $20/hour for 15 hours/week. This has the potential to increase over time for both hours and wage.

~ Experience – ideally but not mandatory some experience in organic gardening, permaculture etc. No specific seed growing experience necessary, but of course welcome 😊 All applicants, please email through resume with your expression of interest for this job.
 
Tasks and skills include:

1. Seed Propagation/Nursery Skills
2. Transplanting
3. Garden Bed Prep
4. Irrigation and water management for healthy plants.
5. Fertilising the garden with a focus on growing nutrient dense plants, food and seeds.
6. Garden Maintenance – weeding, mulching, foliar feeding, compost making.
7. Seed harvesting for both wet and dry seed
8. Wet seed processing and drying
9. Dry seed drying and processing
10. Storing seed techniques and methods
11. Seed selection and rogueing
 
Lifestyle Opportunity with income streams available:

Lots of opportunity for collaboration on the land with several business options we are developing. Please contact us if you are interested in one or several of the following:

~ Helping to develop a coffee cart / store front on the property where ourare wares can be sold along with organic coffee and organic home baking.
~ Music lovers who like the idea of hosting folk festivals on the farm.
~ Help put ideas into action and see a food forest and regenerative landscape develop with tree plantings and holistic grazing of Irish Dexter cattle.
~ There is space to develop market gardening on site for income generation. We have lots of local connections for potential outlets for the crops.
~ Help with workshops, eco farm-stays, and  camps for kids with a focus on sharing the knowledge we have for producing healthy food and seeds.
~ Creative development, through film and documenting our process and educational components.

Accommodation Options:

If you are keen to apply for the job in our seed gardens or live on our farm and help develop and run some of the other new projects or both! We have available a private, 3-bedroom family home, in a sleep out or a site to situate your tiny home with power and water access. There is an excellent early childhood centre 5 min drive away that is open 3 days a week and free to attend. There are two primary schools within 5-10 min drive from gate. Buses for primary schools collect from across the road. We have a 4.5-year-old daughter who would love some neighbours with kids to play with. The accommodation can be leased or work exchange to offset rent cost. We see the rent values at approximately $300/week for the house and $100/week for the sleep-out. A site with power and water access for a tiny house would be approx. $50/week. All utilities would be on top of this, to be determined in consultation with tenants. We have good internet access that could be taped into.

Contact Us:

These opportunities are available to families as well as individuals, please get in touch if you are interested to discuss further. We look forward to hearing from you! Email all enquiries to sethasseeds@outlook.com or ph. 0212388543. 

 
Things to Sow in the Garden Now:

As we have passed the Winter Solstice and the days are growing longer we can start sowing some of our earliest spring vegetables. We will be sowing shortly, Silverbeet Fordhook Giant, Broccoli De Cicco & Romanesco, Broccoli Raab Spring Rapini, Arugula Wild, Cress Land, Rocket, Mizuna, Tat Soi and Lettuces Tree, Speckled, Red Salad Bowl, St Vincent and Lollo Rossa. And in a few weeks all our Tomaotes, Eggplant and Pepper seeds will be sown too! These need to get an early start and a warm place to germinate. 18 degree celsius minimum temperature is necessary to get these babies to shoot.

Don’t forget the companion flowers! You can get underway now or in the next few months Aquilegia Grandmother’s Garden, Dianthus Clove Pink, Cleome Heritage Queen Mix, Statice Sea Lavender, Calendula Orange, Echinacea, Lupin Blue, Sweet Williams and Poppies. So many options, some perennial and some annual so make sure you choose the ones that suit your garden best. 

We often follow the biodynamic calendar and their recommendation to sow seeds at Moon Opposition Saturn, for these dates, check our website.

Our Website is the best place to find the most up to date information on what we have available at all times during the year.

We encourage orders through this medium, but of course we will still accept orders via email from our Catalogue or via the post using our printed order form. And stay tuned as our new catalogue and updated website will be out in July!
 
And here is our   Order Form PDF  or Order Form Excel
 
Email orders from the catalogue to: info@sethasseeds.co.nz

Or post order forms to: Setha's Seeds PO Box 60, Tutira 4181

And a reminder that selections of our seeds are also available from our Retail Outlets around the country. 
 

Happy gardening,

Roddy, Setha, Rebecca and River Rose