STEVE SOLOMON spent much of his adult life in rural Oregon, where he started Territory Seed Company, a mail-order vegetable seed business, which he sold in 1986. Although he retired from the seed company at age forty-four, he continued to research, practice, and refine methods of organic gardening.
Now an active seventy-three-year-old, he currently grows vegetables and vegetable seeds on an entire quarter-acre residential house block. His surplus veggies go into regular weekly food boxes that help a few local families. He makes presentations about gardening and health-related topics and moderates an active Yahoo e-mail chat group called “soilandhealth.” He serves the community as a neighborhood soil analyst with a rapidly expanding list of clients.
In 1980 MARINA McSHANE came across the first Territorial Seed Company catalog, and noticed the founder Steve Solomon lived fairly close by. She visited the seed company’s trial grounds and discovered that Steve willingly shared his knowledge and offered her advice on her own struggling vegetable plot. He had a sincere desire to help other people achieve their aims. Soon after, she went to work at Territorial’s seed room and helped out in the trial gardens, which provided intensive learning.
For several years Marina operated a micro-nursery—growing perennials, shrubs, and trees. She currently lives with her husband and dogs near Eugene, Oregon, where she grows vegetables and ornamentals.
