The Farm Crew at Nature & Nurture Seeds

The Manchester Mirror is running a series of articles to introduce the many vendors at Acorn Farmers’ Market & Café to the community. Each week a different vendor will be featured, to highlight the wide variety of offerings at our local Market, both now and in the future. Watch for this regular feature to learn more about the people who make up the backdrop to this unique Manchester business!

Nature and Nurture Seeds is currently the only seed supplier at Acorn Farmers' Market & Café. Owned by Erica Kempter and Mike Levine, and managed by Michael Lordon, the business is located in Scio Township, near Dexter.

Nature and Nurture Seeds was started eight years ago, but prior to that has been known as Nature and Nurture, LLC for the past 21 years.

The significance of their business name is explained by Mike Levine: "There's the age-old question of whether Nature (genetics) or Nurture (environment) is more important in the final results of an organism's characteristics or outcome. In our business, we recognize that both are equally important, especially as a seed company. We specialize in varieties that are adapted to Michigan and the Great Lakes Region. We are also continually trialling and adapting new varieties to encourage and contribute to diversity in our food supply.

They connected with Acorn through Jae Gerhart from MSU, who suggested they sign up to sell their products at Acorn.

"At Acorn, we sell our heirloom seeds through our seed company Nature & Nurture Seeds, but we wear many other hats too," said Mike. "We are a certified organic farm, have a landscape gardening business, a fruit nursery, orchard, grow shiitake mushrooms, and we are educators with an internship program. We hope to begin teaching gardening, farming, seed saving, and other classes at our farm in the next few years"

Mike adds that "it's great to reach out a little further to the rural communities in our area and get our name out there."

You can follow Nature & Nurture Seeds on both Instagram and Facebook, or check out their web site at https://natureandnurtureseeds.com/. Or come and see their display at Acorn Wednesday 1-4 pm; Thursday noon-6 pm; Friday, 3-6 pm; and Saturday, 10 am-4 pm. Each market day you can walk-in or order online for curbside pickup. Masks and temperature are required to enter the store.