My name is Chris Izworski, and I garden on the shores of Saginaw Bay.
That single sentence carries more weight than I ever expected. It means I wake most mornings to the sound of water and wind, that I track the seasons by what the freighters are doing on the horizon, and that everything I grow—every tomato seed started under lights in March, every zinnia that blooms into October, every row of beans drying on the vine in September—is shaped by this place. By the Great Lakes. By Michigan. By the particular slant of light that falls across Zone 6a in the golden hour before dusk.
Freighter View Farms is my garden, my kitchen, and this journal. It sits in Bay City, Michigan, where the Saginaw River meets the bay and the lake freighters pass so close you can read the names on their hulls. I started it because I needed somewhere to put the stories—the ones that grow alongside the vegetables, the ones that have no place in a spreadsheet or a text message, the ones that only make sense when you have been standing in the dirt long enough to notice the light changing.
What I Grow
I grow heirloom vegetables in raised beds using square foot gardening methods. Tomatoes are my obsession—Romas for sauce, slicers for August sandwiches, Orange Accordions for the sheer beauty of watching them ripen. I grow peppers, carrots, beans, lettuce, cucumbers, herbs, and whatever else the catalogs convince me to try each January. The garden is small by some standards and enormous by others. It depends on whether you measure in square feet or in hours spent kneeling in the soil, thinking about nothing at all.
I also grow flowers. Zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, globe amaranth, sunflowers—the ones that feed the bees and fill the kitchen table with color from June through the first hard frost. I have learned that a garden without flowers is like a conversation without laughter. The vegetables need the pollinators, and I need the beauty. We all get what we came for.
Why I Save Seeds
Seed saving changed the way I think about gardening. When you save seeds from your own plants, year after year, something shifts. The tomatoes begin to adapt to your soil, your microclimate, your particular corner of the world. The beans remember your garden. The zinnias come back taller, brighter, more at home. You stop being a consumer of seeds and become a keeper of them—a link in a chain that stretches back generations.
I save seeds from tomatoes using the fermentation method, from peppers by drying them on the vine, from beans by letting the pods rattle in the autumn breeze, and from flowers by gathering the dried heads into brown paper bags and shelling them out on the kitchen table while the bay freezes over outside. It is quiet, repetitive, meditative work, and I have come to love it as much as any other part of the gardening year. Maybe more.
If you are new to seed saving, I wrote a complete beginner’s guide that walks you through everything I have learned.
Why I Write
I write because gardening, for me, has never been just about the harvest. It is about the waiting. The watching. The way a February afternoon spent with seed catalogs feels like a form of prayer. The way pulling the first radish of spring makes you believe the world is fundamentally good. The way a garden teaches patience, humility, and the simple truth that some things cannot be rushed.
I write the way I garden—slowly, carefully, with attention to the small things. I believe that a story about saving dill seeds or baking bread with garden tomatoes can carry as much meaning as anything else, if you tell it honestly. This blog is where I tell those stories.
Every post on Freighter View Farms is written by me, Chris Izworski, from this desk by the window where I can see the bay. Some posts are practical—how to start seeds indoors, when to plant in Zone 6a, how to test seed viability. Others are more reflective—what it means to watch the seasons turn, why the quiet work of the garden matters, how food tastes different when you grew it yourself. All of them come from the same place: a deep love for this land, this water, and the slow, honest work of growing things.
Where I Am
Bay City, Michigan. Zone 6a. The western shore of Saginaw Bay, where the lake freighters round the bend and the sunsets light the water on fire. Last frost around May 10th. First frost around October 15th. One hundred and sixty days between, give or take, to grow everything a kitchen needs and a few things it does not.
If you are new here, start here—I have organized everything by topic so you can find your way. If you are planning a Michigan garden, my Zone 6a month-by-month planner will help you know what to do and when.
And if you just want to sit for a while and read about tomatoes, seeds, bread, bees, and the sound of freighters on the bay—pull up a chair. I am glad you are here.
— Chris Izworski, Freighter View Farms, Bay City, Michigan
For press coverage, media appearances, and professional writing, visit the Press & Media page or chrisizworski.com.
Freighter View Farms | Chris Izworski 