New Hope Seeds is a small, family owned and operated organization located in Tennessee. We specialize in open-pollinated and heirloom vegetable seed varieties that are rare and not readily commercially available.

We have been producing seeds of rare heirloom seed varieties to local gardeners and farmers for many years but on a much smaller local scale. In 2004 we made the decision to branch onto the internet in order to reach more people and thereby insuring the continued preservation of our seed varieties.

Several of the heirloom seed varieties that we offer are heirlooms from our own ancestors that have been passed down for many generations in our family. We also work to preserve heirloom and rare open pollinated plant varieties by locating, growing, documenting and offering to gardeners and farmers so they can have a chance to experience the 'goodness' of what our ancestors grew and enjoyed. In turn this helps to greatly insure their continued preservation.

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

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

About Our Name

We were formally known as 'Pendergrass Produce & Seed' for many years by our customers but in the summer of 2003 we change our name to better reflect our work and goals in preserving heirloom and open pollinated seed varieties. "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 our ancestors helped organize in the 1870s.

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

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 world's genetic material and the ever growing dependency on unstable hybrids and genetically modified crops (GMO) there is an urgent need for the preservation of our world's open-pollinated plants and seeds.

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 somewhat larger quantities. 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 are limited to a select few varieties because of the amount of 'hand' work involved.