We are a small family operated seed business/truck farm located in Middle Tennessee. We specialize in older open-pollinated and heirloom vegetable varieties that are rare and not readily commercially available.

We have been in the seed business for several years but on a very small local scale and stewards of our families heirlooms for generations. Our principal customers have been local gardeners, farmers, family and friends. Over the years our primary goal has been to preserve our own family heirlooms and other rarer open-pollinated crops.

We also have a long history of Tobacco farming and maintain a large number of rare tobacco seed varieties.

In addition to producing seed we are truck farmers, growing primarily tomatoes and yellow squash for local markets.

About Our Name

We have been formally known as 'Pendergrass Produce & Seed' for many years by our customers but decided in the summer of 2003 to change our seed company name to better reflect our work and goals. "New Hope Seed" was chosen for a couple of reasons.
1) 'New Hope' is somewhat self explanatory, our goal being to bring 'New Hope' to the preservation of our genetic plant material.
2) 'New Hope' is also the name of our church community, New Hope Baptist Church, which my ancestors helped organize in the 1870s.

Our farm and the surrounding land we cultivate have been in our family for many generations, dating back to the early 1800's. It is located in the rolling hills of Tennessee where we enjoy a reasonably long growing season.

Farm Visitation

With our limited amount of staff that we have and the fact we are normally out in the field working most of the time, we are unable or set up to receive visitors.

With the continued disappearance of our worlds genetic material and the every growing dependency on unstable hybrids and genetically modified crops (GMO) there is an urgent, fast growing need for the preservation of our worlds open-pollinated genetic material.

The first step in insuring the preservation of old varieties is to get them back into the hands of gardeners and farmers so they can have a chance to experience the 'goodness' of what our ancestors grew and enjoyed. In turn they will have the opportunity to save the seed and insure their continued preservation.

There are many smaller seed companies working at preserving older varieties.
One such company is our good friends at the Victory Seed Company located in Oregon (click here to learn more about our relationship). Mike Dunton, the owner and founder, shares our passion for the preservation of our plant life. They offer a wide selection of vegetable and flowers seed for the home gardener as well as tools and other items of interest.
Their work/goal is to insure the continued preservation of open-pollinated varieties by getting them back into the hands of the home gardeners, this is the first true step in securing the futures of open-pollinated plants.

Our goal is to take the next logical step towards preservation and get these old varieties back into the market growers and farmers fields by offering the seed in larger quantities, something most small seed companies are unable to do. With our limited amount of help (Mainly me and my Dad) this has been a huge undertaking for us but one we feel that needs to be done. Our variety options will be limited to a select few because of the amount of 'hand' work involved.