Get to Know Your 2025 Rural Entrepreneurs in Residence- Don Tipping (Siskiyou Seeds)

What’s your business?

Siskiyou Seeds is my primary business, although I am active in many different ways, from being a board member of the AGA to farm and garden consultations to podcasting and general media awareness around sustainable living and agricultural best practices.

What led you to start this business?

My business grew out of what I was interested in and could do with the land I bought, as well as an overarching desire to see a better world. Siskiyou Seeds is a small farm based organic seed company in the Siskiyou mountains of SW Oregon growing Organic & Biodynamic since 1997. Our home farm is called Seven Seeds Farm and here we grow, trial, and develop about 3 acres of organic seed crops. The production from our farm represents about half of the 700 varieties that we offer and remainder we contract with a network of about 2 dozen small organic farms throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Siskiyou Seeds is dedicated to providing growers of all scales with organic, open-pollinated seeds of exceptional vigor, quality, and integrity. We are unique in the seed world in that we actually grow most of the seed that we sell here at our home farm.

How did you end up in the Applegate Valley?

I moved to Williams at the recommendation of many a friendly soul when I was following the Grateful Dead, and I knew I wanted to start a homestead for my family.

Why do you (or don’t you) like about doing business in the Applegate?

The Applegate is really a diamond in the rough. Diverse populations and micro-communities coexist and support each other in ways you don’t always find in larger communities.

Name a significant business fail. What did you learn?

I don’t think of them as failures, but as moments to pivot and look at things from a new perspective. Not everything you try will work out the way you thought it would, but there are learning moments and the seeds for a more successful endeavor in every failure if you’re paying attention.

What business accomplishment are you most proud of?

I am proud of the growth and voice of Siskiyou Seeds, and our ability to constantly pivot with the times and technology. Mail-order catalogs evolved to online shopping carts, and learning how to leverage what I already had was one of my biggest strengths as I grew the business.

If you weren’t running your business, what career would you like to pursue?

I suppose I’d be doing the same things I am now, whether I was paid or not. 

What is your best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs?

Look to your community and what you already have. Too many people try to stretch too far and introduce too many new things. Organic, thoughtful growth is the key to sanity and a strong business.

When do you know you have succeeded?

When I see my family, my community, and my business all exactly as they want to be.