10 Easy Pieces: Heirloom Seeds for Spring - Gardenista
The writer Michael Pollan advises: “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” To that, we would like to add: Don’t grow anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as a seed. Photograph by Mimi Giboin. Seeds on display at MIX Garden; for the whole story, see MIX Garden, Healdsburg’s Well-Considered Shop on a Mission. From Italy, family-based Franchi Seeds are favorites of renowned London restaurant The River Café, which grows a year-round garden to supply menu ingredients. Known for its winter-hardy chicories, chards, and spinaches, Franchi Seeds are available from Seeds of Italy for European gardeners and from Grow Italian for US gardeners. Photograph by Janet Hall. Said to be the oldest seed company in the US Connecticut based Comstock Ferre Co is one of Janet s... ...favorites An admitted weakness of mine is falling for gorgeous seed packets and Comstock Ferre doesn t disappoint she writes Photograph by Janet Hall. Started in a San Jose, California warehouse in 1917, Kitazawa Seed specializes in offering seeds of 250 traditional heirloom vegetables of Japan. Photograph by Erin Boyle. Erin buys flower seeds from John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds in my native Connecticut Among her favorites Blue Color Cascading Lobelia 3... ...15 for 1 500 seeds Marine Heliotrope 3 25 for 200 seeds and Picante Salvia Splendens Mixture 3 45 for 25 seeds For more, see Gardening 101: How to Sprout a Seed. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, which started as a mail order seed catalog in 1998 sent by 17-year-old Jere Gettle, is on a mission to find and preserve rare seeds. Hudson Valley Seed Library founder Ken Greene was working as a librarian in upstate New York more than a decade ago when he developed an interest in saving heirloom varieties. Photograph via Seed Library. Renee’s Garden seeds are favorites of Seattle-based flower farmer Erin Benzakein of Floret Farm, who grows Long-Stemmed Zinnia “Blue Point” in shades of pink, white, yellow, red, and orange ($2.79 per packet). Photograph via Chiot’s Run. I recently purchased Jardin Seed Co s Chef s Garden Collection 29 95 in which there are packets of 12... ...varieties of seeds with names like Imperial Star Artichoke Red Express Cabbage Sweet Marketmore Cucumber and Rouge d Hiver Lettuce Shown Waterville, Maine-based Fedco Seeds specializes in cold-hardy varieties that thrive in the Northeast. The company conducts field tests at multiple locations to determine which varieties will grow best in a cold climate. Photograph by Diane via Flickr. Founded in 1989 and sold to Mars eight years later Seeds of Change sells 100 percent certified organic vegetable herb... Photograph via Coupon Karma. ...and flower seeds ranging from Mahogany Nasturtium 3 49 for 20 seeds to Wheatgrass 3 49 for 1 000 seeds