The Seedsman
One plant family. One set of standards.
BioArva sells brassicas — broccoli, kale, cabbage, and their kin — and nothing else. Every lot passes one man's germination test before it goes into a packet.
The story
A nurse who counts seeds.
Jon Emery spent years as a registered nurse before training in the Soil Food Web method — Dr. Elaine Ingham's approach to reading soil biology under a microscope. Both disciplines run on the same habit: measure, log, don't guess. BioArva is that discipline applied to seed.
The catalog is small on purpose. Instead of two hundred varieties described by a copywriter, it is a handful of brassicas grown in a trial bed, germination-tested on a bench, and written up by the person who did both. When a lot fails the test, it is not discounted. It is not sold.
The sprouting seed came first — broccoli and radish by the pound, grown in a jar on a windowsill in five days. The Garden Line followed: eight heirlooms chosen because they earned their place, not because they filled a page.
RN
Registered nurse
SFW
Trained in the Soil Food Web method
100%
of lots tested before sale
How we test
The protocol behind every lot number.
Every product page shows a germination percentage, a test month, and a lot number. This is where those numbers come from.
Sample the lot
Two hundred seeds drawn at random from each incoming lot — never from the top of the bag. Sprouting lots also go out for independent pathogen screening.
Run the test
Duplicate 100-seed germination tests on moist paper at 70°F, counted at day five. The duplicate has to agree — a spread wider than 4 points reruns the test.
Log it, dated
Result, date, method, and decision go in the lot log. The number you see on a product page is that entry, not a supplier's certificate.
Pass or it doesn't sell
Sprouting seed releases at 90% or better; garden packets at 85% or better. A failed lot is returned or composted. It is never discounted into the catalog.
A real entry from the log
- Lot
- BR-2607-A · Broccoli Sprouting Seed
- Sample
- 2 × 100 seeds · paper towel method · 70°F
- Result
- 96% at day 5 (95, 97)
- Decision
- PASS — released Jul 2026
“If it didn't pass, you're not seeing it.”
Jon Emery · RN · trained in the Soil Food Web method
Shop the tested seed