Amid the lushness of green growing and flowering plants at Cochrane Family Farm, it feels a long way from operating a computer business to growing heritage plants, selling produce and saving seeds. But that’s exactly what Frank and Lisa Cochrane, their daughter Julie, and youngest son Brian are doing in Upper Stewiacke, N.S.

The sounds of happy pollinators doing their jobs accompany tidy flower beds, lush with blooms. In the seed storing house, vegetable, herb and flower seeds are drying in large containers. When they’re dry, they’ll be packaged as heritage, non-genetically modified seed and sold in cheery packages in the store attached to the farmhouse, where customers browse through fresh produce, local meat, organic dry goods such as rice, flour and cereal grains, plus the Cochranes’ jarred spices, teas, seasonings and herbal skin-care remedies.

Prior to 2009, the family farmed on a smaller scale, and operated a computer company. “People started wanting things that we were harvesting, and we found it to be a very rewarding lifestyle,” Frank says.

They officially began the farm that year and chose to go organic in their farming methods. Frank explains, “We had always followed natural methods of growing, as we wanted to be careful of what we put in our bodies, and equally important was taking care of the soil and the water table on our farm.” He and Lisa felt that becoming certified organic would allow their customers to have confidence in the quality of their products.

Frank began saving seeds more than 40 years ago, with his grandfather. “Tracing the history and knowing the stories behind the seeds is fascinating,” he says. “Heirloom (or heritage) seeds are seeds that have been saved through generations.” With heritage seeds, people can also save their own seeds. This also helps ensure those unique heritage varieties, some very local, don’t disappear. The process of saving seed isn’t difficult, but it does take time, and many gardeners prefer to simply by from local companies such as Cochrane Family Farm.

The family opened the store in 2012 and began selling their seeds in 2015. Today, their seeds are available at a host of other businesses around the region and online. Frank and Lisa are also regulars at local farmers markets.

They also offer workshops, with topics including starting plants from seed, saving seeds, growing in raised beds and medicinal herbs. Daughter Julie often leads these workshops, which are popular. For information on workshops, see cochranefamilyfarm.com. Many of the workshops are in late winter through spring, with seed-saving workshops in August, once seeds begin to ripen.

Among the popular seeds they sell (which range from beans to zucchini) are interesting and flavourful varieties, including ‘Touchstone Gold’ beets, the very rare ‘Canadian Wild Goose’ drying bean, Daikon radish, ‘Cosmic Purple’ carrots and ‘Painted Mountain’ edible decorative corn. A big attraction for home gardeners is the more than 40 varieties of tomato seeds, in a rainbow of colours, sizes and shapes, including grape and cherry, along with paste type tomatoes and hefty, delicious, beefsteak varieties.

For flower enthusiasts, Frank and Lisa grow a riot of blooming colour in their display beds, including poppies, nasturtiums and nigella (three of my own favourite annuals, which I grow yearly from their seed), a host of sunflowers, fragrant sweet William and cornflowers and fine zinnias for the late blooming garden. All heritage varieties, they produce pollen and nectar — a source of great nutrition for pollinators from hummingbirds and butterflies to native bees and honeybees.

For the culinary gardener, there is a host of herb seeds, including a few that you won’t find for sale everywhere, such as stinging nettles (don’t laugh — they’re a delightful pot herb and make a lovely tea) and musk mallow, used for teas and salves.

Growing plants from seed can intimidate beginners, but it mostly just requires a few good supplies and excellent seeds. Add the appropriate heat, light and watering requirements and you should be well on your way. The seed packages from Cochrane’s have excellent information for germination and transplanting, unlike some companies that offer little gardening info.

As with any sort of farming, growing market crops and plants for seed sources is subject to the challenges of nature (and bureaucracy). Organic registration records must be updated, and the farm is audited yearly to maintain its organic certification. Frank and Lisa say that the record keeping gives them very accurate collections of data, which “we use for decision making and planning,” but certification is expensive and very time consuming  with plenty of paperwork. All labelling needs to reflect certification correctly.

One of the biggest challenges to any farmer is, of course, weather, and a massive rainfall in July 2023 was unprecedented at the farm. The Stewiacke River flooded and destroyed many crops, including most of the garlic, potatoes and beans. “Some of our fields were underwater,” Frank says ruefully. Other years, late spring frosts, damaging winter wind, and ice storms have played havoc with crops and with the tunnel greenhouses where they grow many vegetables. The Cochranes tend to be philosophical about such weather challenges.

“Nothing to be done about that except to focus on what was undamaged. There is always next year.”

And as long as there is seed, there will be crops.