Briefly, Two Seeds in a Pod is a family and farmer-owned seed company founded in 2013 and co-owned by Drs. Mehmet Öztan and Amy Thompson. Our company specializes in the seeds of Türkiye, especially the seeds that originated, bred, stewarded, and passed down many generations in Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor). Since Fall 2019, we also have been growing and offering the seeds of the region currently known as Appalachia.
All of our seeds are open-pollinated. None of our seeds are treated or patented.
We farmed on borrowed land in Tampa, FL, from 2013-2015 and on leased land in Thonotosassa, FL, from 2015-2018, both on Seminole land. In 2018, we moved to beautiful West Virginia, and between April 2019 and June 2024, our seed restoration, preservation and propagation farm was located in Reedsville, WV, on Seneca and Shawnee peoples’ land. Since 2020, we have been transitioning out of growing the entire stock seed for all of the varieties we offer in our catalog to focus more on foundation stock seed propagation, evaluation of varieties for potential plant breeding projects and seed documentation.
We are small farmers, and in the past, we attended farmers’ markets to sell produce. Between 2013 and 2018, we also collaborated with Chef Gregory Seymour of Pizzeria Gregario to explore the flavor dimensions of the produce we grew from our seeds. Providing produce to a family-owned restaurant helped us understand and connect with the seeds we grow better.
Owners
Mehmet Öztan
Photo by Mike Costello
Mehmet is a Turkish seed keeper and has a passion of growing the seeds of Türkiye. Since he quit his engineering career to co-found Two Seeds in a Pod in 2013, he has grown and documented hundreds of culturally appropriate seed varieties of his motherland. All of the seeds you browse in our seed catalog is evaluated, documented grown, harvested and processed by Mehmet and other small farmers. From 2018 to 2024, he also used to work at West Virginia University as part-time faculty, exploring creative ways to spread the love of seeds and engage communities on a variety of topics including preserving agrobiodiversity and food and environmental justice through projects such as Seedy Talks. In addition to managing Two Seeds in a Pod, he currently serves as the Director of Community Engagement at the Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response (RIDER) Center positioned in the joint College of Engineering of FAMU-FSU.
Mehmet’s maternal grandfather was born and raised in Bulgaria until he had to flee to Anatolia in early 20th century to save his life from ethnic and religious cleansing in the region during the Ottoman contraction. Due to this ancestral connection, he has a vast interest in the Balkans’ seeds which you will also see listed in our catalog. His maternal grandmother’s family migrated from Georgia to Anatolia, and his paternal grandparents were from Central Anatolia, all of which contributed to shaping his relationships with food and seeds.
You can watch the fourth episode of Homegrown Foodways in West Virginia that featured Mehmet below. The film series was produced by Mike Costello and Amy Dawson of Lost Creek Farm, and co-sponsored by the Library of Congress in collaboration with the West Virginia Folklife Program. The series received Appalachian Studies Association’s 2022 Jack Spadaro documentary award.
Mehmet was one of the 2024 Appalachian Foodways Practitioner fellows, and a nominee for the James Beard Foundation leadership award in the category of industry culture and practices category.
You can find more information about Mehmet’s scholarly work here.
Amy S Thompson
Amy is the co-founder of Two Seeds in a Pod. She is a professor of applied linguistics, and served as the Chair of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, and the Director of International Relations and Strategic Planning for Eberly College of Arts & Sciences at West Virginia University from 2018 to 2024. She is a dedicated advocate of cultural and linguistic diversity and women leadership in higher education. Amy is currently the Director of the School of Teacher Education positioned in the College of Education at FSU.
When she has free time, Amy helps Mehmet process seeds, and helps with many tasks on the farm from fixing fences to building shelves to packing seeds. She is also involved with everything artistic about our company.
You can find more information about Amy’s scholarly work here.