Charlie Watt with Sungold Select tomatoes Credit: Courtesy Vermont’s growing season is short. Unless you’re comfortable tempting the fates that bring late frosts, common wisdom is to hold off on planting warm-weather crops until mid-to-late May. That doesn’t leave much time for something l ike a watermelon — which can take 90 days to reach maturity — to grow and ripen before the threat of frost returns. In my zone 5a garden, Royal Golden watermelons stubbornly remain green. This year, I’m hedging my bets with the Bozeman watermelon from Homecoming Seeds, a new farm-grown seed business in Northfield. The variety’s description in the online seed catalog promises “a great tasting and productive watermelon variety for our short and cooler seasons, fully ripening faster than most other watermelons of this size.” Homecoming Seeds founder Charlie Watt launched his catalog right before midnight on January 17. On the 19th, he started packing the first orders to ship around Vermont and to customers in New Jersey, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Watt grows roughly 80 percent of the new company’s open-pollinated vegetable, flower and herb seed stock himself at Flytree Farm in Northfield, where he lives with his wife, Madi, and daughter, Fia. The rest is grown locally at farms he contracts with, such as Small Axe Farm in Barnet. Flytree Farm Credit: Courtesy Many of the varieties — including the Bozeman watermelon — were shared with him by his mentor, John Austin. Others come from Vermont seed-saving legend Sylvia Davatz, the retired founder of Hartland’s Solstice Seeds. Each is adapted to our region’s short growing season; they’re fast maturing and cold hardy. “And they taste good,” Watt said with a laugh. A self-described “ecologist who likes eating,” Watt, 32, came to farming postcollege as a way to work outside and keep winters for skiing. While getting his doctorate at Montana State University in agriculture and education, he had a fortuitous encounter with Austin, a local gardener, seed keeper and community elder. “I was doing a presentation about my tomatoes,” Watt recalled, “and he comes up to me and says, ‘It’s so nice to meet a young person who’s interested in tomatoes.’” The two became close friends, and Austin introduced Watt to the seed-keeping world, sharing stories behind the seeds and the significance they hold for those who steward them — particularly within Indigenous communities. Packets of seeds Credit: Courtesy That relationship, as well as Watt’s work with the Montana Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative, “really opened my eyes to the cultural and spiritual nature that seeds have and their relationship with humans,” he said. The seasonal rhythms of seed farming differ slightly from those of farming, in which high-season produce is the goal. With seeds, Watt explained, the farmer is involved in the plant’s full life cycle. “There isn’t that market hustle, that weekly hustle of harvest, wash, pack, go to market,” Watt said. During the growing season, “it’s a little bit more chill, and you can just focus on growing happy, healthy plants.” He also selects for different characteristics than a market farmer might. Aesthetics aren’t a big deal, but ripening time is. If you grow a Maria Amazilitei’s Giant Red or dehybridized Sungold Select from Homecoming Seeds, Watt said, “you will probably be the first person in your neighborhood with ripe tomatoes.” In the depths of winter, Watt’s work continues with seed processing and order fulfillment. Homecoming Seeds are available only through the online shop for now, though he hopes to attend a few farmers markets in the coming year. I placed my Homecoming Seeds order last week: Brown Goldring lettuce, Merlot lettuce, Candy Mountain sweet corn and the Bozeman watermelon ($5 each). Months will pass before I plant them, but I can already taste that ripe melon. The original print version of this article was headlined “Home Grown | A new farm-based seed company launches in Northfield” The post Farm-Grown Homecoming Seeds Launches in Northfield appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less