Posts by Jeff Wagner

One of the most exciting and inspiring parts of being a seed grower is the understanding that our food and seed crops aren’t static relics of the past, and instead, living ecosystems that are constantly evolving and adapting to place. Therefore, the work of the seed grower isn’t only the maintenance of varieties from our past but as a co-evolutionary partner in the varieties of the future. For the past summers on our educational farm in Paonia, Colorado, we have been plagued by infestations of […]

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This new section of our newsletter (and blog!) will include the books, podcasts, and people that keep us inspired to continue our environmental work in the face of all the challenges facing our world. We see burnout, overwhelm, and hopelessness as some of the largest obstacles to climate and ecological action, so this is where we share tools to maintain a sense of stability in rough seas. Hooray! This month: an incredible interview with Christiana Figueres, one of the guiding figures for the UN’s work […]

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These seeds defied USSR government control to travel to the United States in the late 1980’s! One of our seed steward mentors, Bill McDorman, was visiting an agricultural research station in Siberia on a trip to find seeds that might grow well in the harsh conditions mountain west. He asked whether he could take samples of the seeds back to the US to grow and distribute, but the research director told him he would need permission from the Kremlin. As he was leaving, one of […]

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The beautiful Painted Mountain corn is a metaphor for our times, blending together different seeds to create something new and beautiful. Painted Mountain was bred by Dave Christensen in Montana over 20 years ago. He crossed a huge variety of native corns together, selecting traits that led to a short season, drought-tolerant and cold-tolerant corn variety. Typically, when heritage varieties of corn leave indigenous hands, the variety is re-named something generic, severing the ties between the seeds and their cultural stories and histories. All corn […]

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We’re excited to share a short video talking with participants on our Human & Natural Ecologies of Colorado courses on the Grand Mesa in Western Colorado. Participants built their connection with the landscapes of Colorado, from the high alpine down into the aspen groves, scrub oaks, and piñon/juniper forests. Leaving the course, participants walked away with knowledge of wild edible plants, wild edible mushrooms and how to go mushroom hunting, knowledge of ecosystems to help in their foraging, and knowledge of landscape-scale human interactions in […]

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Seeds have a story… Groundwork grows and maintains over 200 varieties of seed. We partner with local seed companies that adapt seeds to our arid Colorado region, breeding resiliency for a changing climate. Indian Blue Pearl Millet. Millet is one of the most drought tolerant, versatile grain crops in the world. Millet is a broad category of grasses with edible seeds. In fact, the word “millet” doesn’t just refer to many species, but it includes 10 different plant genera (that’s the first word in the […]

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This post was written by Cora, a student on a Traveling School semester program that visited the educational farm in fall 2022. Driving up to the Groundwork farm in Paonia, Colorado, I had no idea what I was getting into. Our van sputtered down the Colorado roads, past tall coniferous trees growing in pinkish-orange soil, surely sending rocks skittering as we descended into a stunning valley of yellow aspen and wide green farmland. The van rocked with music (usually Caamp or Taylor Swift) and shook […]

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When I founded Groundwork, I wanted to give voice to the big questions. What does it look like when a society regards the Earth as the source of everything they love? How could people in the modern world treat the Earth as more than something be just barely sustained, an obstacle on the path to profit? What would it take to envision a future that is not just a minor adjustment to the destructive ideologies of the present? I like to think of Earth Day […]

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The core narrative of climate change is one of urgency: “we need to act fast because it’s almost too late.” This urgent time frame is unquestionable. Indeed, climate change could and should have been solved decades ago. It may seem heretical, then, for an environmentalist to question this narrative of “acting fast”—but this is exactly what I’d like to do.  I want to question our society’s default process when confronted with urgency: fast action. The narrative of speed embodies a subtle dissonance—because the Western, capitalist, […]

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Headlines in past weeks have touted reduced greenhouse gas emissions as COVID-19 halts travel and industrial activity. If not for the suffering and death, the pandemic could be a climate activist’s dream: grounded flights and idle cars. It’s tempting to see emissions reductions as a silver lining in this bleak time, but the Wall Street Journal reports that past economic slowdowns have caused only temporary reductions in emissions. A few months of reduced emissions will mean nothing if we return to business as usual once […]

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