Free Heirloom Seeds is a grassroots effort to preserve species & empower individuals as well as communities with the resources necessary to provide for their basic needs, without chemicals, without corporate control & without mechanical genetic engineering.

Through donations & volunteer power we are able to offer free heirloom & open pollinated seeds to the general public.

What started as a small family project & has quickly grown into an international effort.
Our main office & primary seed farm is located in Green County Kentucky.
We are currently operated as a sole proprietorship until such time as our non profit is stable enough to stand on it's own.

Donations go to increase our ability to produce & acquire seed stock, seed packing, packing materials & postage.

It is our hope that through our efforts more people will begin to save seeds-
~ Ensuring biodiversity on earth.
~ Reducing pollution by producing more goods locally & with sustainable practices.
~ Increasing planetary health by giving more people affordable access to fresh local foods.
~ Reducing the relevance & impact of biotech & corporate "food" producers.
~ Empowering individuals & communities to be self sufficient.

Our seeds are grown by us, donated by individuals & businesses, wildcrafted, "grown out" for us by members of our community & purchased from reputable seed packers & producers.

Our facebook group Free Heirloom Seeds Community is one of the largest seed trading groups in the world.

If you have any questions or would like to get involved you can reach us at FreeHeirloomSeeds@gmail.com

Our Story ~

This service was started by Michael Reeves & is maintained by him, his family, the occasional volunteer & some paid seed packers when needed.
Michael has always had a lot of ideas to address the problems our society faces today, but found it a challenge to gain support for them & to turn ideas into results. Species preservation, sustainability & self reliance are at the core of these ideas. One day he had the idea to do something very small to make a measurable difference in his community, & acquired 1000 strawberry plants to give away at his retail store. Over a period of about 5 years he gave away about 15,000 strawberry plants in a small town with a population of about the same number.
Giving away strawberry plants turned out to be very successful, for the small amount of effort & expense, people in his community took notice & some of those that got strawberries are still growing them today. The next step was to get more people involved, & more species.

The most powerful tool available for species preservation, sustainability & self reliance revealed itself as seeds. The first year Michael & his wife Hiroko acquired about 30 varieties of heirloom seeds & hand painted a sign that said "Free Heirloom Seeds - Here Now!".
The response was phenomenal, people not only came in for seeds, but people showed genuine physical support for what they were doing. People began to ask if they could donate to support the project, so on their urging a jar was placed out for donations. Because the family was doing this out of love & had a moderately successful business every penny was able to go directly to expanding this service.

Despite the resilience of the small retail store the family faced problems. The local economy began to deteriorate as the top industry there began to fall apart, right around the same time they planned to buy a farm. Business was still good but much slower. After nearly a decade of paying thousands in rent & utilities every month, Michael & Hiroko did what few would do. They became voluntarily homeless with their 2 year old son in order to save money for a farm. They moved into a bus & occasionally slept in the unplumbed, uninsulated storage warehouse of their business. Shortly after, more troubles arrived, as they were living & working in fire stricken Northern California the power company began forced blackouts for safety, putting an even heavier weight on the already beleaguered family business. The whole time, they never stopped giving away seeds.

It was still very small at that point. It was all by word of mouth. Michael built a simple webpage but never promoted it. In the beginning you would just come in or send an sase & they would pack it full of seeds & return it, all the labels were hand written. There was a point, when sitting in the store, staring at a pile of envelopes when it became apparent, there has to be a better way. Everyday envelopes were coming in & waste was piling up. That's when the online request system was born. Donating for the cost of the stamp & even if you had to pay a transaction fee it was still cheaper than buying a stamp to send a stamp.

Then one day the postman arrives with a bundle of envelopes, returned for insufficient postage. That's when they learned about postal regulations & found out that letters over 1/4 inch thick are considered parcels & needed more than $4 postage. This created the suggested minimum donation for parcels. It wasn't long after that covid hit. Our founders had just returned from the gem show they vended at annually in Tucson Arizona to find themselves in lockdown, without a house & their business, all but shuttered completely. Despite the challenges they managed to keep their doors of their store open to those that needed free seeds, & at cost natural food, toiletries & herbal medicines. All the while living in a bus on the side of the road or camping in a drafty warehouse. Packing seeds night after night.

Then, seeing the needs that everyone faced while basic goods were in short supply, Michael decided to promote the families' free seed distribution service on social media. It started by getting approval from a few groups that believed in what they were doing & wanted to support. Eventually they started a group on Facebook "Free Heirloom Seeds Community". Then waking up to hundreds of emails. It became a frantic rush to serve everyone. Then the mailman comes in one day with a pile of envelopes & says these do not have sufficient postage. Lesson #2 about USPS regulations. After a couple years, one of the local postal clerks decided to enforce the "non-machinable" rule. Any letter that contains objects other than paper must pay extra postage as it's considered "nonmachinable" & could potentially get caught in the machine sorter. Now every letter with seeds in it was going to cost a little more to get out. The adjustments were made & the seeds kept flowing.

20 hour days packing seeds were not uncommon during covid. Eventually things returned back to normal & with all the money printed during covid the family business began to thrive again. With the post covid economic stimulus & the savings from voluntary homelessness the family was finally able to make a down payment on a farm. But they weren't the only ones. Almost every property they had been eyeing over the last year was sold almost instantly. They called realtors only to get laughed at "sold the day it was listed". Finally one property that fit the bill was available, in Green County KY. The family went there immediately, fell in love & made an offer. Michael, originally from the Midwest, had bought 4 acres in the neighboring county about 20 years earlier but life took him another direction. Still having the farm & getting to the farm were not the same. They still had a lease on the shop in California & no house on the farm, it would take time & effort. Hiroko became pregnant & the family needed a home to have their second boy in. After searching for nearly the entire term of her pregnancy they finally found someone who would rent to them. They finally had a home & a break from the streets.

A year later the landlord decided he wanted to move into the house & asked them to leave. They were back in the bus full time. This did help them to pay off the farm, but it was still a long way to get there. With 16 years of inventory & life piling up it was not going to be an easy move. Despite the challenges they faced, the family remained dedicated to their commitment to support species preservations, sustainability & self reliance for all. The seeds kept flowing. 3 years later down a bumpy road they finally made it to their home in Green County & managed to start another seed farm in Ferndale CA on their way out. They are still living humbly in an off grid, solar powered cabin they built & their unfinished kitchen serves as the distribution center for this organization until they can afford to build a dedicated facility. Over the years the family business took a big hit. They didn't have the time to grow it out to full potential with all the work of packing seeds & also just lost interest as their desire to live in harmony with nature & to help others to do the same became their top priority. They still fund some aspects of the Free Heirloom Seed Foundation through there online wholesale stone & jewelry business, though the seed distribution has become largely self sufficient.
In 2025 they managed to deliver nearly half a million packs of seeds to people around the globe. Free Heirloom Seeds Community is fast becoming the world's largest decentralized living seed bank & has grown to over 160,000 members. The families' commitment to helping others & preserving life on earth doesn't stop with seeds. There are plans in the works to bring living seed banks & species preservation farms to communities everywhere, to help people that want to farm to be able to access the land & equipment they need, to build community centers that house root cellars big enough to store food for the entire community, to provide access to basic essential to people on a not for profit basis, to help communities to produce basic goods, like toilet paper, so they can be self reliant & strong, to help humanity reach it's full potential by making the world a healthier & happier place. This is just the beginning. It all started with an act of love.

The moral of the story is, with love, faith, creativity & a little hard work, anyone can make a difference.
Whether with us, or without us we invite & challenge you to do something beautiful with your life, to take the time to help another & leave something good for the next generation.

Thank you for taking the time to read. We wish you all the best!

Happy Planting!!