Artisan Seeds launches - Page 16

ReginaAnn · April 17, 2014

Happy to participate Fred! Would a new thread help people find out about the project?

Fred Hempel · April 17, 2014

That's great ReginaAnn

It's possible that another thread might help, but I am trying to keep my advertising limited to as few threads as possible. I think I already mentioned this in another thread as well...

One more thread might be spamming.

ReginaAnn · April 17, 2014

Ahh, you're a good man Fred.

heirloomtomaguy · April 19, 2014

I for one am excited about all of your landraces and am surprised that your goal has not yet been met. I recently attended Freds tomato grafting class at his farm in Sunol and had the opportunity to see and taste some of his varieties. The ones that i am looking forward to the most are his tri lobed squash with a soft rind and his carribean seasoning peppers. He was generous enough to send me home with seedlings from the peppers. Im putting that pepper in the ground in about an hour and will be patiently waiting for those first flowers to appear. Good luck Fred and i hope to see those landrace seeds available soon.

Dak · April 19, 2014

I agree with you, heirloomtomatoguy! I would really like to try some of Fred's tri-loped squash as well... still needs to raise $1K. If it gets close, I would double my pledge.

Fred Hempel · April 20, 2014

Lots of squash transplanted yesterday, including the tri-lobed squash in our kickstarter project.

Lots of tomatoes had their first transplant into 4" pots.

Put a significant amount of oyster-shell lime on the beds. Our Magnesium:Calcium ratio is too high. Hopefully the liming will improve our tomatoes this year. I have a hunch it was one of our problems last year.

Picking Nasturtium flowers like crazy. The free samples that our wholesaler distributed seem to have boosted demand!

Scope · April 22, 2014

Hello Fred,

If I were in US,I do join your project!

I'm always confused about how to make up soil condition. Last year, I've put silicon fertilizer to the bed of cucumber. It seemed that they tend to grow without powdery mildew. So I put them to tomatoes this year. Hope it works well.

Good luck!

Fred Hempel · April 22, 2014

Kickstarter project fail. But, we are going to do as much of the project as we can over the next year. Updates will be posted on our blog: www.baianicchia.blogspot.com

heirloomtomaguy · April 22, 2014

Bummer. Sorry to here about the kickstarter fail Fred. Hopefully those landrace varieties will be available sometime soon.

Fred Hempel · April 22, 2014

They will. The response was encouraging. I'll keep everyone posted on the blog. I am spending the next couple days organizing an packing seeds. I will have some available immediately.

heirloomtomaguy · April 23, 2014

Awesome hey i came into some dwarf jewel nasturtium seeds and some alaska dwarf single flowering nasturtiums with variegated foliage seeds if you are interested.

epsilon · April 23, 2014

If you'll have some of the papavero, and terremoto seeds available I would be completely ecstatic to give them a run in my garden.

I have some ideas on how you might improve your fundraising results in the future. though I'm not sure if you've already given consideration to similar ideas for reaching your target demographics.

Gaston

Fred Hempel · April 23, 2014

Gaston,

I actually do have some squash seeds left over from planting, and I am going to make them available in the next couple of days.

I would be very interested in your thoughts on fundraising. One interesting result of the kickstarter campaign is that The Crowdfunder Show has contacted me, and it seems they are interested in potentially having our project on their show.

Heirloom Tomato Guy -- Interestingly, Jewel and Variegated Alaskan are already part of the genetic mix for our nasturtiums.

epsilon · April 24, 2014

Fred

Congratulations on the good news of getting contacted by the show you're headed for an amazing opportunity to show everyone how valuable your Land Race varietals are.

As far as the kick starter project I noticed a few thing that you did very right
and a few things that you could stand to make adjustments to.

I think above all the other little things that I noticed, I wonder if you networked enough and also have allowed for higher tiered investor/donators.

There might be a low appreciation for squash in one area but in another it can be a very worth while food staple. Especially types of produce that have potential to display several unique qualities within it's own variety as well as provide a spectrum of continually evolving textures and flavors from season to season . I think your squash is more suitable to more a dynamic locavore food cultures. The bay area is good but the tourist volume dictates a necessity for uniform quality.

There are places like Detroit where the economy crashed hard which caused them to shift to a CGA model for subsistence, The large community garden in Detroit would be an optimal place for your super adaptable land race varieties.

Along those line are also Portland and Seattle, though they aren't producing food because their economy fell through, they are very aware of the importance of production of locally grown produce. I know that in Seattle that there is a community forward garden where no one has to pay a cent but the food produced is easily acc

Also I think that there might be potential with small farmers in Kansas seeing as that they're having something of a local grown renaissance, also their chefs are less concerned with uniformity for tourism and more interested in producing food at a locally reasonable cost as well as encouraging interest in new ting in general

I think what I'm getting at is that it seems like your primary investors would be people and groups who are more concerned with the potential to have more final product. And less instantaneously well known gourmet items.

I think to nutshell What I'm saying is that I'm curious as to the extent of your canvasing and to whom you were actually presenting to.

Also I noticed that as far as your backing incentives, first wow. your thank you gifts vs backing tier ratio has a really high rate of return comparatively to other KS entrepreneurs.

But your top donation tier is set really low. So if there was anyone who were interested in making a large donation are out of luck because your highest tier was 50$ and it's inconvenient to have to make multiple donations.

Also the longer a person has to think about donating or spending X amount of $, the less they are likely to carry through with the donation/purchase. So having the option to drop one, two or even five hundred dollars Is actually a good idea to keep the bigger investors/donators from rationalizing an expenditure.

I feel like I'm being really long winded here so I'm going to cut this off for now, and if this is in anyway interesting or discussion worthy, we can always establish more of a dialogue and less of me typing a marketing analysis

Gaston

Dak · April 24, 2014

Fred, I would be very interested as well if you're offering left over squash seeds. I will be stalking your blog for updates.

Congrats on being contacted by Crowdfunder. I see a lot of value in what you are offering, I feel very lucky to have seeds of Captain Lucky to grow again this year, it was one of my most successful tomatoes last summer. You do very good work.

April 17, 2014	#226
ReginaAnn Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Northern CA Posts: 203	Happy to participate Fred! Would a new thread help people find out about the project?

April 17, 2014	#227
Fred Hempel Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Sunol, CA Posts: 2,723	That's great ReginaAnn It's possible that another thread might help, but I am trying to keep my advertising limited to as few threads as possible. I think I already mentioned this in another thread as well... One more thread might be spamming.

April 17, 2014	#228
ReginaAnn Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Jan 2014 Location: Northern CA Posts: 203	Ahh, you're a good man Fred.

April 19, 2014	#229
heirloomtomaguy Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: glendora ca Posts: 2,560	I for one am excited about all of your landraces and am surprised that your goal has not yet been met. I recently attended Freds tomato grafting class at his farm in Sunol and had the opportunity to see and taste some of his varieties. The ones that i am looking forward to the most are his tri lobed squash with a soft rind and his carribean seasoning peppers. He was generous enough to send me home with seedlings from the peppers. Im putting that pepper in the ground in about an hour and will be patiently waiting for those first flowers to appear. Good luck Fred and i hope to see those landrace seeds available soon.

April 19, 2014	#230
Dak Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: CA Posts: 494	I agree with you, heirloomtomatoguy! I would really like to try some of Fred's tri-loped squash as well... still needs to raise $1K. If it gets close, I would double my pledge.

April 20, 2014	#231
Fred Hempel Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Sunol, CA Posts: 2,723	Lots of squash transplanted yesterday, including the tri-lobed squash in our kickstarter project. Lots of tomatoes had their first transplant into 4" pots. Put a significant amount of oyster-shell lime on the beds. Our Magnesium:Calcium ratio is too high. Hopefully the liming will improve our tomatoes this year. I have a hunch it was one of our problems last year. Picking Nasturtium flowers like crazy. The free samples that our wholesaler distributed seem to have boosted demand!

April 22, 2014	#232
Scope Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Climate Zone　9B in Asia Posts: 26	Hello Fred, If I were in US,I do join your project! I'm always confused about how to make up soil condition. Last year, I've put silicon fertilizer to the bed of cucumber. It seemed that they tend to grow without powdery mildew. So I put them to tomatoes this year. Hope it works well. Good luck!

April 22, 2014	#233
Fred Hempel Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Sunol, CA Posts: 2,723	Kickstarter project fail. But, we are going to do as much of the project as we can over the next year. Updates will be posted on our blog: www.baianicchia.blogspot.com

April 22, 2014	#234
heirloomtomaguy Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: glendora ca Posts: 2,560	Bummer. Sorry to here about the kickstarter fail Fred. Hopefully those landrace varieties will be available sometime soon.

April 22, 2014	#235
Fred Hempel Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Sunol, CA Posts: 2,723	They will. The response was encouraging. I'll keep everyone posted on the blog. I am spending the next couple days organizing an packing seeds. I will have some available immediately.

April 23, 2014	#236
heirloomtomaguy Tomatovillian™ Join Date: May 2013 Location: glendora ca Posts: 2,560	Awesome hey i came into some dwarf jewel nasturtium seeds and some alaska dwarf single flowering nasturtiums with variegated foliage seeds if you are interested.

April 23, 2014	#237
epsilon Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Desert CA Posts: 400	If you'll have some of the papavero, and terremoto seeds available I would be completely ecstatic to give them a run in my garden. I have some ideas on how you might improve your fundraising results in the future. though I'm not sure if you've already given consideration to similar ideas for reaching your target demographics. Gaston

April 23, 2014	#238
Fred Hempel Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Sunol, CA Posts: 2,723	Gaston, I actually do have some squash seeds left over from planting, and I am going to make them available in the next couple of days. I would be very interested in your thoughts on fundraising. One interesting result of the kickstarter campaign is that The Crowdfunder Show has contacted me, and it seems they are interested in potentially having our project on their show. Heirloom Tomato Guy -- Interestingly, Jewel and Variegated Alaskan are already part of the genetic mix for our nasturtiums.

April 24, 2014	#239
epsilon Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Aug 2012 Location: Desert CA Posts: 400	Fred Congratulations on the good news of getting contacted by the show you're headed for an amazing opportunity to show everyone how valuable your Land Race varietals are. As far as the kick starter project I noticed a few thing that you did very right and a few things that you could stand to make adjustments to. I think above all the other little things that I noticed, I wonder if you networked enough and also have allowed for higher tiered investor/donators. There might be a low appreciation for squash in one area but in another it can be a very worth while food staple. Especially types of produce that have potential to display several unique qualities within it's own variety as well as provide a spectrum of continually evolving textures and flavors from season to season . I think your squash is more suitable to more a dynamic locavore food cultures. The bay area is good but the tourist volume dictates a necessity for uniform quality. There are places like Detroit where the economy crashed hard which caused them to shift to a CGA model for subsistence, The large community garden in Detroit would be an optimal place for your super adaptable land race varieties. Along those line are also Portland and Seattle, though they aren't producing food because their economy fell through, they are very aware of the importance of production of locally grown produce. I know that in Seattle that there is a community forward garden where no one has to pay a cent but the food produced is easily acc Also I think that there might be potential with small farmers in Kansas seeing as that they're having something of a local grown renaissance, also their chefs are less concerned with uniformity for tourism and more interested in producing food at a locally reasonable cost as well as encouraging interest in new ting in general I think what I'm getting at is that it seems like your primary investors would be people and groups who are more concerned with the potential to have more final product. And less instantaneously well known gourmet items. I think to nutshell What I'm saying is that I'm curious as to the extent of your canvasing and to whom you were actually presenting to. Also I noticed that as far as your backing incentives, first wow. your thank you gifts vs backing tier ratio has a really high rate of return comparatively to other KS entrepreneurs. But your top donation tier is set really low. So if there was anyone who were interested in making a large donation are out of luck because your highest tier was 50$ and it's inconvenient to have to make multiple donations. Also the longer a person has to think about donating or spending X amount of $, the less they are likely to carry through with the donation/purchase. So having the option to drop one, two or even five hundred dollars Is actually a good idea to keep the bigger investors/donators from rationalizing an expenditure. I feel like I'm being really long winded here so I'm going to cut this off for now, and if this is in anyway interesting or discussion worthy, we can always establish more of a dialogue and less of me typing a marketing analysis Gaston

April 24, 2014	#240
Dak Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: CA Posts: 494	Fred, I would be very interested as well if you're offering left over squash seeds. I will be stalking your blog for updates. Congrats on being contacted by Crowdfunder. I see a lot of value in what you are offering, I feel very lucky to have seeds of Captain Lucky to grow again this year, it was one of my most successful tomatoes last summer. You do very good work.