Our Story: A Woman in Love with Seeds

Spiffy Seeds is part of an ongoing love affair Ann Amato has had with seeds and plants since she was a child. Truth be told, the story began when she started to ask the question, “Where do plants come from and how do they grow?”

With family and neighbors who gardened, had farmed, and who’d worked in produce, many of her initial questions were answered years ago by elder members of her community.

Yet, those answers never fully satiated her need to know and do more.

A previously undiagnosed primary immune condition had her fearful of field studies as an undergraduate, so she studied linguistic epistemology and the historiography of science to make up for that. After many years of health issues, she eventually graduated from Portland State University with a double major in English literature and art history.

It was a slog.

Ann spent a lot of time in the realm of critical theory in order to question much of what she’d been raised to believe and to do better.

She’s a happier person for it.

But the moral of this story is that all roads led her right back to her first love, plants—and especially their seeds. She believes in small businesses and worked professionally as a part-time seed propagator at Cistus Nursery for a smidgen under 7 years, and she currently works as the Production Manager at Secret Garden Growers in Canby, Oregon. For over a decade, she sold seeds on Etsy at Milton’s Garden Menagerie.

When she’s not working with plants, well, you’ll find her hiking, driving (or traveling), to look at plants.