Will Nagengast and Lynn Byczynski, talk about their family business Seeds from Italy, food, and market farming

We head to Kansas to speak with Lynn Byczynski and Will Nagengast about market farming, cut flowers, farm journalism, Italian culinary traditions, and seeds. Their family business is Seeds from Italy.

Byczynski founded Growing for Market, a magazine for market farmers. She is the author of Market Farming Success, The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower’s Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers, The Hoophouse Handbook.

The Journey into the Seed Business

Byczynski says that when the farm wasn’t enough to support the family, she branched out into producing Growing for Market using her background in journalism and newspaper reporting.

She found that the writing and farming fed off of each other: While interviewing people for articles, she heard ideas that they could try on their farm; and things they were doing on their own farm could be shared with other farmers in Growing for Market.

Seeds from Italy

She says the hair on the back of her neck stood up when an advertiser for her Growing for Market newsletter told her that the sale of his Italian seed distribution business had fallen through. “I could just feel this was the next thing we were going to do,” she says.

The first thing that the family did after taking over Seeds from Italy was to take a trip to Italy to meet the owners of Franchi Seeds, the company whose seed they would be distributing in the United States.

Nagengast and Byczynski say that once home, they immersed themselves in the varieties they were selling by having weekly Italian-themed meals cooked with the Italian varieties they distribute.

Italian Seeds in North America

Italy has a varied climate, with many regional vegetable varieties. They list 23 varieties of zucchini! Most of these different varieties, they explain, are regional varieties.

For North American gardeners thinking about what Italian varieties are best suited to their gardens, they recommend looking to areas of Italy with a similar latitude.