Saltspring Seeds
These seeds were all grown locally on Saltspring Island. All of them are untreated, open-pollinated and non-GMO. They are all grown organically but not necessarily certified, which doesn't bother me. :) I will get as many as I can from them and then source some from the other suppliers listed below. Next year it won't be as much of an investment because I can save lots of seeds.
Cherry Tomatoes:
Amish salad (sweet)
Galina (yellow)
Babywine (drying)
Paste Tomatoes:
Jitomate Bulito (salsa)
Costoluto Genovese (paste)
Other:
Tomatillo
Peppers:
Sweet Cayenne
Supra bell
Cayenne
Chili Relleno
Jalapeno (I love making homemade salsa - yum!)
Sue Senger’s Chili
Lettuce:
Baby star romaine
Red sails
Tom Thumb (container - in an effort to save space some plants will be container grown)
Bietina swiss chard (year round - we may be building a cheap plastic greenhouse for this)
Parsley Giante d'Italia
Russian red kale (year round)
Cilantro
Peas:
Russian sugar peas
The pilot (shelling pea)
Beans:
Montezuma red bean (chili bean)
Heritage bean mix (heirloom)
Nerina green bean (bush)
Venture (snap bean)
Squash:
Round zucchini
Blue hubbard
Syrian pumpkin
Table acorn
Cucumber:
Marketmore
Sue’s pickling cucumber
Corn:
Indian sweet corn
Roots:
Winter party onion (for storage)
Sperling toga onion
Denmark winter leeks (year round - these grow well in winter)
Royal chantenay carrot
Harris winter parsnip (leave mulched after frost)
Wheat/Other:
Red fife wheat (wheat grass for smoothies - probably grown indoors)
Amaranth mix (seeds, greens)
Herbs:
Lemon balm
Coriander/cilantro
Genovese basil (indoors, pesto)
Wild basil (outdoor, bees, medicinal)
Wild thyme
Yellow lavender
Burdock
Korean mint
Greek oregano
Dill
Summer savory
Hemp agrimony
Chinese motherwort
Coltsfoot
Lemon bergamot
Marshmallow
Rue (companion plant, insects repellent for the garden)
Horehound
St. John’s Wort
Echinacea
Valerian
Feverfew
EarthFuture
These are a little less locally grown, but still come from the island. They are all certified organic and all non-GMO and open-pollinated.
Arugula (perennial)
Broccoli
Onions (scallion perennial)
Spinach
Chamomile
Chives
Baker Creek
This company is in Missouri but ships all over the world. I am not sure if I will really do these but I really want to. It will depend on how much space I have left.
Ground cherry (ground husk tomato)
Red wonder wild strawberry
Birdhouse gourd (birdhouses)
Calabash (bottle gourd)
Honey drip sorghum
Seed potatoes:
I really want to get some regular old Yukon gold seed potatoes and do a potato patch. If I could even get a couple of bags of potatoes that would be awesome.
Coming Next Year!
That's a great list, thanks for the local seed source options.
I did potatoes this past year and it was great - I just used some extra potatoes that I got at the farmers' market (organic), let them sit in the dark in a paper bag and get eyes, cut them up (put them back into the bag for a little while to dry) and planted them in a large container on our balcony (we don't have in-ground garden space so I've been growing food in containers).
I planted them in about 8 inches of soil, and when the plants grew up, I covered them with more soil (leaving a few leaves at the top, maybe 4 inches of plant?). I kept doing this all summer until the bin was full of dirt.
It was just one container, but we got at least 8 large yellow potatoes, and 20 or so small purple potatoes, from about 4 plants. It was very exciting.
I would definitely consider doing some potatoes in containers, it's very space-efficient since it's pretty vertical (many people use garbage cans - I used a plastic storage container.)
Good luck with your garden!
I like your herbs list (of course I would). Some nice healing/medicinal stuff there.