Territorial Seed Company is a privately held company, wholly owned by Tom and Julie Johns. Purchased in 1985 from its founder Steve Solomon, Tom and Julie have grown the business substantially over the past 40 years but have never strayed far from the original course set by Steve. The first Territorial Seed catalog was written in the fall of 1979. Running a regional seed company responsibly meant sifting through the thousands of varieties available from a worldwide market to find the highest-quality, best-adapted ones, so Steve grew a serious trial ground in both summer and winter, consisting basically of comparison plots. The garden had clay soil with less than a gallon of water per minute from the well.