Meet Our Team » Eli W.
Eli W.
Seed Production Manager
In early spring I am known as The Germinator, and can usually be found back in Seedville, which consists of the germination chamber and the seed room- -home to the seeding machine and a fridge full of tote boxes of neatly organized seed packets. It’s often freezing in the seed room, so I always have a cozy stocking cap on under my sound protector muffs and over my earbuds. Come shipping time, find me in and around the veggie houses, wearing my wide brimmed straw Amish hat and sun sleeves balancing three flats of kale and squinting at the tiny print on the tomato tags. High summer finds me sweating in the same sun protection gear, and taking breaks from outdoor work to swear at the production software program and the USDA website. More earbuds here because it’s easier for me to crunch numbers and fine tune formulas to the sound of loud music than the sound of three simultaneous co-worker conversations. Blessed autumn and it’s time to pull out the safety orange stocking cap for my breaktime walk down the road or around the back field. Winter brings snowshoeing season and I don a lightweight buff to tramp down the trail around the back field and do a lap every day at lunchtime, checking out all the animal tracks and getting in some big sky time.
Germinator- I start all the baby plants
Seed Queen - orderer and organizer of all things seed
Keeper of the most cluttered desk --animal bones, sparkly quartz crystals found in the driveway, lichen covered tree knots, wasp nest fragments, butterfly exoskeletons, napping cats… who needs room to work?
Creator of the most over the top spreadsheets - every color indicates something important. Really. Yes the headers DO need to be in bold and the column titles need to be centered.
Weather Girl- ask me what time the wind will shift to the west and how high the dew point will be this afternoon.
Ladder Lover - it’s roofing season. I’ll climb the tall one. Just let me find some wood scraps around here to level it first.
The 2025 Staff story prompt was how do you use, (work with) plants? Here's Eli's response:
Although I do eat the fruits of many of the plants I take home (chilis three meals a day from August to October!), a majority of them go into the yard in the never ending quest to create more pollinator habitat. With all the rain this summer, it’s full on Crazy Garden Lady mode and my yard is a psychedelic jungle of lanky native perennials and all the fun specialty annual salvia guaranitica, not to mention border gem faves like wine-purple agastache, deep scarlet asclepias, bright orange tithonia, nicotiana-the green ones of course and rich purple verbena. Then there are pots of almost every dianthus we grow. (I can admit I have a pink problem…what about it?!)
It is a pollinator party! Mostly honey bees and the most common bumble bees come around, plus visits from multiple species of butterflies and moths. Cavity nesting and solitary bees feel at home, as do a variety of wasps and nectar-seeking flies. Larger fauna from wild turkeys to foxes also pass through occasionally–not bad for south Minneapolis! Chilling on the back deck watching a variety of bees and butterflies take over whichever native has just come into bloom is like living in your own private nature documentary. Many of the natives are so prolific that I have plenty to give away to neighbors, which makes me seem generous, but it also furthers my evil plot to turn more lawns into habitat! Bwah ha ha ha!