Blog

Lynn Byczynski is the author of three gardening books: The Flower Farmer, Market Farming Success, and The Vegetable Garden Planner. She was the founder and publisher of Growing for Market magazine, a national periodical for market farmers. She is currently the garden manager for her family’s business, Seeds from Italy, the U.S. distributor for Italy’s oldest family-owned seed company, Franchi Sementi.

Lynn started gardening in college, and now has more than 45 years experience growing vegetables, cut flowers, woody ornamentals, natives, and other landscape plants. For 25 of those years, she and her husband, Dan Nagengast, were commercial organic vegetable and flower growers on a 20-acre farm outside of Lawrence, Kansas. During those years, they grew on four acres, in a heated greenhouse, and in four high tunnels. They sold at farmers markets, to restaurants, natural food coops, and florists. They retired and sold their farm in 2018.

Since then, Lynn has returned to her roots as a dedicated backyard gardener, starting seeds under lights in her basement and growing vegetables and flowers at her home and a nearby farm. Every year since 2012 she has grown at least two dozen of Seeds from Italy’s varieties — which puts her about halfway through the offerings. She writes the SFI blog and provides photos for the website and social media — an absolute dream of a retirement job!

In 2020, Lynn found a unique form of zinnia in a patch grown from Franchi seed, which has led to a new interest in plant breeding —and possibly another book!

Lynn can be reached by email.