Katie Miller was raised in Virginia. She attended Brown University in Rhode Island, and ended up staying there to work a season on an organic farm called Manic Organic.
“I got the organic farming bug from a terrific woman farmer named Nicole Vitello,” Katie says. “She was my mentor and I went from her farm to running a two-acre, 100-member CSA farm in Cranston. ”
The farm, called Scratch Farm, was her life for eight years. During that time, she went to a seed conference in Massachusetts and got hooked on growing crops for seed. She was so successful at it that she started her own small retail seed company, and sold seeds to local garden centers and to other farmers.
Eventually, Katie sold her interest in Scratch to her farming partner and came west. She had heard about some seed producers on the West Coast and about Organic Seed Alliance in Port Townsend, so she settled here.
Katie is working on many seed projects for Nash’s Farm, including Brussels sprouts, Pearl Romanesco, an extended-season cauliflower, two cabbages, a red kale, a chard, some spinach varieties, and a carrot selection.
She is very interested in no-till vegetable farming and is using that method to grow several varieties of corn, squash and greens on her own. It is a very sustainable, but challenging way to grow food and we are very impressed with her skill and knowledge as she does her work at Nash’s.