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Ira Wallace serves on the board of the Organic Seed Alliance and is a worker/owner of the cooperatively managed Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, which offers over 700 varieties of open-pollinated heirloom and organic seeds selected for flavor and regional adaptability. She is also an organizer of the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, a fun, family-friendly event featuring an old-time seed swap, local food, hands-on workshops, demos, and more. She currently writes about heirloom vegetable varieties for magazines and blogs including Mother Earth News, Fine Gardening, and Southern Exposure.

Tell us a little about yourself.

At this trying time, the number of people who started buying seeds this last week, people with children

we homeschooled

to have a homeschool moment everyday

so much math and science

good nutrition and taste for your amid

Mineral, VA

east coast earthquake

epicenter between Charlottes Ville and

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange,

mid atlantic and southeast

people who have ea. yanking for

With climate change people are growing different things, I\'ve heard of people growing okra here in Montana.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

well, It looks like our internet is a little unstable so that might be a problem but we\'ll try to keep going

started gardening with my grandmother about 71 years ago

in Tampa Fl

we had a double lot in one of the lots in the town was our big garden

pecan tree

hot in the summer

summer garden was partially shaded

• okra
• southern peas

however we had a 3 season garden in terms of the fall, winter spring

turned around from the way that I am used to now

my grandmother who raised me gardening

passed away when I went off with college

motivated me with my student friends to start a garden, it was a pitiful over by the art studios but we thought it was the best garden ever!

at The New College in Sarasota Florida

private college at that time, since it has become the honors college of UFLA system

yeah

so I was lucky that I had been admitted and had a scholarship

when my grandmother passed

How did you learn how to garden organically?

I learned the basics from my grandmother

David Bradshaw

I learned the sensible things from family and back it up from science in college

I took taxonomy classes

I never thought anyone would make a living out of farming, my grandmother said you garden for yourself, but only rich people can make a living at farming. But we small farmers have proved that to be wrong. I was lucky enough to come up in the florida where I grew up to Carolina, I was lucky of the part of the start of the farmers market

one of the early great farmers markets in north Carolina

same time

work with little kids

before I moved into being a crafts person and professional farmer and seeds person I did a lot of volunteering in botanical gardens and local garden initiatives. Especially with kids. The thing that I did with the North Carolina Botanical Garden was plant rescue of native plants so when they destroyed by buildings'