Sowing Good Seeds

Each year in early April, Elsie Soucie’s pepper plants and geranium seedlings begin to push their way— slowly, tentatively—up out of the soil toward the fluorescent lights in her garage greenhouse, their earthy smell and tender green a hopeful sign that spring is finally near. Having gardened for most of her 82 years, Soucie is philosophical about Maine’s long winters and short growing season.

“After a hard, dark winter, I can’t wait to get my hands in the dirt,” she says with her hearty laugh. Soucie has strong, capable hands from years of digging and weeding; her hazel eyes sparkle with a zest for life. “It’s good for the soul to get out in the garden and see things grow. You can’t hurry a seed growing. It’s just going to come up in its own time. Gardening slows you down and teaches you patience.”

While at least two-thirds of Americans say they do some type of gardening, only about 10 million households are involved in the satisfying but more labor-intensive task of growing plants from seeds. Gardeners like Soucie who plant from seed and passionately declare “nothing tastes as good as a sun-ripe tomato picked off the vine” are the kinds of customers that have made Johnny’s Selected Seeds a household name.

The Winslow mail-order seed company and its 100-acre organic test farm in Albion is a homegrown Maine
success story. From modest beginnings in 1973, founder and chairman Rob Johnston Jr. has steered the central Maine business to national and international renown by specializing in high-quality seeds—many organic—specifically bred for northern gardens.

Although the privately owned company doesn’t share sales figures, it ships anywhere from 1.5 to two million seed packets each year. Johnny’s rigorously tests all seeds and products it sells, and six times Johnny’s-bred seeds have been named prestigious All-America Selection (AAS) winners. The latest triumph of its top-notch breeding program is 2006’s AAS offering, the Carmen pepper. “It’s thick, fleshy, and really sweet,” says vegetable product manager Steve Bellavia, praising its fantastic flavor for salads, stir fries, “or eating out of hand like an apple.”

Johnny’s Selected Seeds’ dedication to quality products and excellent customer service brings to mind the reputation of another Maine mail-order giant. “I’ve heard us called the L.L. Bean of seed companies,” says Mark Philbrook, the company’s affable marketing coordinator. “I was at an industry conference out in Seattle, and when people found I worked at Johnny’s Seeds, I got asked out to dinner or invited to their homes like I was some kind of celebrity.”

What is it about Johnny’s Selected Seeds—named after Johnny Appleseed—that inspires this near-mythic status? Loyal customers point to the staggering array of seed products offered in the colorful catalog that’s packed with down-to-earth planting information. If you wanted to grow an out-of-the-ordinary carrot, for example, Johnny’s sells no less than 17 varieties, including the new Rainbow (an array of yellow, white, and orange), Purple Haze (bright purple), and Kinbi (golden yellow). For herbs and flowers, the offerings are equally generous. A long winter’s evening can be spent just trying to choose between more than 30 types of basil and 40 varieties of sunflowers. Flower product manager Kelly Comer is excited about new types of sweet pea, zinnia, and calendula offered in this year’s catalog.

At the trial gardens in Albion, more than 4,000 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers are performance tested each year, making it one of the largest such programs in the country. According to product manager
Bellavia, pleasing the discriminating home gardener and small commercial grower is the company’s mission. “In testing our products, we look at things like, does it produce well? does it look good? is it early? But the most important aspect is flavor. I want to put [vegetable varieties] in the catalog that gardeners will enjoy eating.”

Once plants are producing in the summer, company employees take a weekly tasting tour of the trial gardens to become familiar with new varieties that may be featured in the catalog. “We want to find good varieties for short-season gardening—that’s our niche,” Bellavia adds. “We don’t sell to huge commercial growers looking only for high yields. We go for the best possible taste and performance. It’s exciting when we get a
new variety that customers will love.” Johnny’s 100-plus employees share this vision of quality and integrity. At the Winslow seed production facility, visitors are greeted in the lobby by a colorful mural depicting the Albion gardens in full bloom.

In the lab, registered seed technologists meticulously test each seed lot every five months to ensure excellent germination rates and healthy seeds. Various storage rooms hold each type of seed at its optimal temperature and humidity before being packed and shipped across the country and around the world. But despite the hectic pace during seed-shipping season, there’s a laid-back undercurrent reflecting the company’s commitment to a higher calling than profit margins. Employees often bring their dogs to work. A whimsical display rack in the main building holds rows of seed packets, each packet featuring a smiling Johnny’s
employee.

Founder Johnston prefers that his company’s success speak for itself. Bearded and soft-spoken with a direct gaze, Johnston gives the impression he would rather be field testing the latest pumpkin crop than sitting in his office analyzing the company’s phenomenal growth. “It took over 30 years to get where we are today,” he says. “It didn’t happen overnight.”

Even as chairman of a thriving business whose travels take him around the world, Johnston remains actively involved in research and seed development. Since many of Johnny’s customers are specialty growers for farmer’s markets and restaurants, he is well aware that his company supplies their livelihood. “It’s food we’re growing, after all. This is their living, and it’s a huge responsibility. If we’re helping gardeners grow a better carrot or tomato, there’s nothing better than hearing someone say, ‘Hey, that worked really well for me this season,’” Johnston says. In particular, he mentioned the company’s long-term relationship with a large organic broccoli farm in Aroostook County. “We’ve been supplying Smith Farm since the 1980s, and I like to think we’ve helped their operation.”

It has long been Johnny’s mission to help gardeners find success in harsh northern climates with short growing seasons. Johnston reflects on the painstaking research and field tests that are the company’s hallmark. “We’re testing our products right here in the middle of central Maine, so we know what it’s like to grow in a northern climate.”

Elsie Soucie agrees that a Maine-grown seed has the advantage of being adapted to its environment. “If you
buy seeds from a Maine company where it’s grown here, you know it’s in the right zone for you.”

Not that Johnny’s Seeds customers are only from Maine—the company sells its products all over the country, to both home gardeners and commercial growers. A new, user-friendly website was launched last
November, and marketing coordinator Philbrook reports that Internet sales are growing by double digits each year. “We expect that 25% of our business will be through the Internet this year.” Fueled by Johnston’s strong belief in giving back to the community, Johnny’s Seeds also quietly runs a far-reaching seed donation
program coordinated by Philbrook. The company donates all of the previous year’s seeds to Master Gardener programs, elementary schools, colleges, and community gardens in Maine and across the country.
Handwritten thank-you notes from school children and photos of community gardens in Miami, Chicago, and Ithaca, N.Y., line the walls outside Philbrook’s office. “We send seeds to food banks and soup kitchens to pass out to clients to start their own gardens,” Philbrook says. “One customer’s son is in the Peace Corps in Africa. He’s using some of our donated seeds to teach the villagers about organic gardening.”

Along with free seeds, Johnny’s provides free space for Master Gardener classes, a 40- hour instruction program run by Maine’s county Cooperative Extension offices. After completing the class work, new Master
Gardeners must do 40 hours of volunteer work in their home county. “Many of our employees, including call center reps who answer customer questions, have completed the Master Gardener program. So there’s a
high level of commitment to gardening that’s companywide,” Philbrook says. Gleason Gray can vouch for the positive impact of Johnny’s seed donation program. The Penobscot County Extension educator directs the Plant a Row for the Hungry project at Roger’s Farm in Stillwater, a research and display garden that includes a plot maintained by Master Gardeners. “The Plant a Row project’s been going on for about 10 years now and it operates on a pretty low budget. Yearly [seed] donations from Johnny’s help us raise vegetables that we otherwise couldn’t,” Gray explains. “Plus they donate flower seeds used in the demonstration garden for the public to learn from and enjoy.”

Gray added that last year the local Plant a Row project raised over 20,000 pounds of produce to benefit Penobscot County food banks, soup kitchens, and other nonprofit agencies. Johnny’s donates seeds to all 16 Cooperative Extension offices in Maine, and statewide the volunteer gardeners raised nearly 100,000 pounds of food last year. According to Cooperative Extension educator Barbara Murphy, who coordinates the statewide Plant a Row project, this year’s optimistic goal is to produce at least 120,000 pounds of vegetables
to benefit the hungry.

The story of Johnny’s Selected Seeds is more than a tale of Maine-based corporate success. Through the company’s commitment to providing short-season gardeners with superior seeds, and sharing those highperforming seeds with community causes, they’re helping us grow better gardens and showing the way to a better world—one seed packet at a time.