Our Story

The story behind Livingseeds goes back over 30 years. As a young boy I always remember collecting seeds, if I came across a tree that was shedding seed pods or wild flower in seed, I’d collect the seeds and store them in a small wooden box. This wooden box (which I still have) amassed a surprisingly large collection of assorted and unknown seeds over many years.  None were catalogued or named and I could only identify a handful of the really distinctive ones, the rest were indiscriminate and held my dream of germinating them.... one day.

I kept them just for the idea that they could literally grow into trees or plants that I could one day use in my garden. It was the romance of ‘growing a garden from scratch’ that kept me collecting the seed. I think it's also the idea that there exists the potential of life and the ability of giving sustenance in every single seed.

The older I grew, the more my tastes in seed and plants changed, I went through various phases in gardening and seed collecting, some examples are; Indigenous trees, Aloes, Cycads, Bulbs, orchids and finally veggies.

Growing veggies started in 1997 when we had our first child and naturally we wanted to feed her only healthy, natural food. Our gardening interests changed to food gardening specifically to meet this goal. That was really the beginning of concentrating on collecting veggie seed specifically. From there it started with just a few varieties, and every season I would slowly swap and trade seed with other food gardeners who had also been saving seed for many years. These gardeners would share knowledge and techniques with me, both in gardening and in seed saving, techniques that I still use to this day to help keep seed pure and viable from year to year.

The idea for an online website was purely an accident (We believe a God ordained accident). Steve Venter from www.texo.co.za got in touch with me and was asking for some heirloom seeds. Up to that point I had been collecting and sharing with like-minded gardeners, basically by word of mouth. Steve and I hit it off from word go, and I offered to supply Steve heirloom vegetable seed at no charge, for a new venture of his. Being the person he is, he insisted on payment. So, In true barter style, his payment was as follows.

First the idea of South Africa’s first online Heirloom Seed Store, and second the hosting of Livingseeds.co.za at no charge for the first year. The credit therefore for Livingseeds.co.za being available to you guys is actually Steve’s, as I would never have thought that the response would have been so great.

Due to Steve, we had the honour of being South Africa's first online heirloom vegetable seed store. Today we are the largest in terms of variety offered, and unique in the fact that we personally grow over 90% of the varieties sold, on our own property. It's notable that very few seed companies in the world can claim this destinction. There is a careful balancing act in terms of planning, sowing, and harvesting schedules. There are also various isolation techniques that need to be followed, to ensure that  the next generation of seed is pure. I would probably still be stuck in a job that I was clearly not enjoying if it was not for Steve and his generosity.

Livingseeds started off in 2009 with only 34 varieties on our website (but we had only 17 in stock), we now list over 1200 varieties! We grow well over 1000 varieties on our own property every year. Livingseeds is globally unique in the fact that we grow over 1000 varieties on a single property every year. This requires meticulous planning and an advanced understanding of pollination, isolation and seed purity techniques.Many of the varieties we receive are given to us as 1 or 2 seeds and we need to grow-out the varieties over a number of years. Occasionally we get given seed that has not been properly isolated. It takes us 4-6 years to ‘clean-up’ the variety and bring it back to its original glory. Only then can we offer these varieties to you to enjoy and hopefully share with your family and friends.

Livingseeds also has a small, specialised network of dedicated growers that share our love of heirloom and open pollinated vegetable seed. This unique network assists us in increasing our seed production of varieties that we are unable to grow out on our own property.

The Livingseeds Hatchery is one of our newest ventures and has very quickly become South Africa's best supplier of heritage poultry. Started in 2022 as a direct result of people asking us for our own personal birds. The Livingseeds Hatchery focuses of providing quality heritage birds to the homestead and backyard chicken enthusiast. We work with over 30 breeds of chickens for the coloured egg enthusiast, pet chicken, egg production, pest control or simply just for the beauty of having a stunning flock gracefully strutting across the lawn.
The Livingseeds Hatchery has set the standard when it comes to purchasing quality birds.

Livingseeds has a walk-in store on our farm in the Midvaal. Livingseeds Farm is a practising regenerative farm where we use a number of regenerative soil building processes.
Some examples are:
Johnson-Su Compost Reactors, we run two Johnson-Su reactors 6 months apart and this provides feedstock for our biochar inoculations and soil improvements.
BioChar kiln, we produce over 10 tons of BioChar every year, mainly for on-farm use. This BioChar is ground up using activated worm tea as the inoculum.
Activated Worm Elixir, using our worm farms we produce 1000lt of activated worm elixir every week for use on our crops.
Worm Farms, we run multiple 100 cubic meter worm farms, taking our deep bed stable waste and turning into high quality vermicasts.
Salatin style Deep Litter Bedding, carbon heavy deep litter bedding is used to capture the "backend" waste from our cattle and sheep at night. Trapping organic nitrogen for our plants to use.
Intensive grazing, we run cattle (Dexter x Nguni), Pedi Sheep, Veldt pigs and a pastered egg mobile in that order over our pastures.
Extreme mulching,, Livingseeds regularly puts anywhere between 60 and 120 tons of organic matter onto our soil every month.
Free choice mineral licks, our animals have access to free choice mineral licks where they are able to individually select the minerals that they require for the pasture, season and biological cycle that they are in.

Imagine getting up in the morning to "live your dream", that's exactly where we are at, living out our passion for selfsustainability and leading others to a more independent future in their food. We homeschool our 5 children, who all have a very clear idea of where their food comes from. They are all involved in the processes required to produce food from veggies to beef. They realise that food requires effort, and yes, it does grow in dirt!

So, you've read our story, we are living the life, on our own farm. We would love to help you get there too.