My Favourite Seed Sources for the Home Gardener

I have always purchased a whole lot of seeds annually, like I mean, a crazy lot! Some were for my own potager, of course, while the majority were for the greenhouse to start and sell to you as plants in spring. Now that I no longer have that wonderful wee greenhouse, I have been getting a lot of questions about where I source my seeds from so that you can grow your own next year, especially the heirloom and open-pollinated tomatoes.

I grow a lot of carrots each year, these Chantenay's are my favourites.

I have a real love affair with heirlooms, I like that there is a backstory to how they came to be, that someone loved it enough to save it and carry it on for generation. Some of the new open-pollinated types will become the heirlooms of tomorrow, they are that good!

You can save the seeds from any heirloom or open-pollinated plant growing in your garden and you will get the exact same vegetable next year. If you were to take seeds from a hybrid, you will get some version of the parentage that went into hybridizing that veggie, but it will not be true to what you grew this year. If you are into self-sustainability and seed saving, leave the hybrids off your shopping list.

I love to shop around and support all sorts of different seed houses, especially the smaller mom and pop ones, but shipping costs can add up really fast. It is pricey to shop around. If you want to order from several seed houses, maybe look into ordering with a group of friends? If you are in the Innisfail area, I would love to get together with you, we can become 'garden groupies'!

One more thing of note when buying seeds in person, or online - always check to see how many seeds you are getting for the price that you are paying. Some send 10 seeds for the same price that others charge for 25 seeds (and no, in most cases, their seeds are not superior).

Also, the seeds may cost more if it is brand new to (their) market, if organically and sustainably grown, or when being grown and sold by a small independent mom and pop company. You choose what you want to pay more for, if anything. Sometimes I will just pay whatever it costs as I really want it, while other times I decide that my mainstay is fine, I will wait till it goes down in price or find it elsewhere.

Here are the Seed Houses that I buy from and what I tend to buy from them.

Renee's Garden Seeds - has been my go-to for over 20 years, for both veggies and flowers. I love the packaging with the pretty pictures, and the seeds are of superb quality. I always have had the fastest and best germination from their seeds. The price point is really good, and you get a decent number of seeds per package.

Flowers - Their mixed colour selections are superb, so well thought out and many combos to choose from. I especially love their zinnias. Where most seed houses give you one mixed colour choice (always with yellow in it, urgh) or just one single colour per package, at Renee's you have a wide selection of both colours and combos to choose from. From here, I would buy everything but if I had to choose just a few, it would be the alyssum, zinnias, and nasturtiums. They also carry Gem marigolds.

Veggies - Again, I have been growing them for years and years, all are great, but here are some of my favourite Renee's veggies.

Cucumbers - Best cucumbers ever! Green Fingers, Chelsea Prize, Tasty Green, Bush Cucumbers, and Endeavor are the ones I grow annually. Yes, I grow all of them!

Melons/Watermelons - I have always had really great success with all of them, love the wee little watermelons. They are all really good so I cannot give you a favourite.

They have a great array to choose from in carrots, lettuces, and I love the mesclun mixes. Oh, and the purple cauliflower is so pretty, tasty, and I find it less fussy to grow than white.

T&T Seeds - Manitoba, Canada

What I love most about this seed source is that they take shipping costs into consideration. I spend a lot on shipping, so I really appreciate a good deal. You can order up to 10 regular sized packages of flowers or veggies for just $5 in shipping (within Canada). You really cannot go wrong with prices like that. If you want more than 10 packages, I would just put in two orders; )

Flowers - If you are looking for exotic new varieties, you will not find many to choose from here, but they carry a great selection of the garden workhorses, the ones that feed the bees and attract the pollinators. They offer a great price point, and there are some real gems to be found.

Gem Marigolds - Speaking of gems, these are one of the very best flowers you can grow in your vegetable garden to for the pollinators and other beneficial insects. The flowers come in yellow, red, and orange. When I could get my hands on these guys, I put them in the pollinator packs that I sold you each spring.

White Swan Marigold - tall lovely creamy white marigolds with a light marshmallow scent. I sold many flats of these at the ngp annually, they are that amazing!

Nasturtiums - They have the new compact Baby Rose and a stunning one called Black Velvet that is to die for. So pretty. I would put that one in baskets.

Sunflowers - Strawberry Blonde, a lovely pale pink one.

Vegetables - A good selection to choose from in most all the categories, here are a few of my favourites.

Beets - I like every single one but my favourites are Chioggia and Cylindrical. The cylindrical ones are great for pickling in slices.

Carrots - a whole lot of great ones! Red Atomic, Danvers, Healthmaster. The Rainbow mix is my favourite (as it has no white ones, I am not a fan of the white carrots).

Cucumbers - So many pickling types to choose from! All amazing.

Tomatoes - Rapunzel. This is a very cool open-pollinated cherry that I'd like to trial.

My flower beds at the acreage.

Floret Flower Farm - Skagit Valley, USA.

This beautiful flower farm grows their own seeds, they are organically grown, come direct from the source, and they have a stunning selection.

You cannot go wrong with any of the choices. The hardest part will be getting your hands of some of their seeds, as they sell out quickly.

Stems Flower Farm - Ontario, Canada

Known for their flowers, of course, but they also have a wee bit of most every vegetable so you can buy both veggies and specialty flowers all at one source to save on shipping.

The very best thing? They sell mixed variety packs of nearly every herb and veggie you would want to grow and don't charge extra for making a mix!

You get a bunch of varieties in one package, so you save money and have a great blend with different maturity dates for an extended harvest season.

Some of the veggies that they sell a variety of...

Eggplant mix, pickling cucumber mix, cucumber mix, sweet pepper, hot pepper, summer squash, winter squash, kale, lettuce mixes of many sorts, paste tomato (for canners!), cherry tomato, slicing tomato mix....

Honestly, you really need to check out all the great veggies and variety packs they sell.

Flowers - A beautiful, huge selection of hard to find, unique varieties.

The amaranth varieties! The zinnias, cosmos, phlox, and snapdragons! I can go crazy with the shopping at Stems.

Climbing petunias from Vesey's Seeds.

Vesey's Seeds - This is the link to the Canadian shop but if you are from the States, just click at the top where the Canadian flag is, and the America shop will pop up for you. The shipping rates are reasonable (for Canada Post).

I mostly buy perennials and flower bulbs from Vesey's, they have great lilies, grape hyacinths, gladiolas, and just about everything else. They also have a sales section at the back of their catalogue, if you get it shipped to you, where they have plants of all sorts for $5 and $10.

Flowers- Just this spring, I saw a picture someone sent in of the petunias they grew from seed, especially the climbing ones! Wow!

Veggies - They have a really decent selection in all the veggie types. You could probably order just about everything you need from this one company, they have it all.

Lots of tomatoes to choose from, some hybrids, some heirlooms, and some of the new, cool, open-pollinated ones.

Their onion selection is really good, with several types of shallots to choose from, as well. I am big on growing onions, all sizes, shapes, and colours. Make sure to grow at least one type that is a good storage onion, not all of them are.

Tomatoes...

The two that I buy the majority of my tomato seeds from are Heritage Harvest Seeds in Canada, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in the USA. Both have an extensive list of heirloom and open pollinated seeds to choose from, for flowers and veggies. I buy all sorts of veggies and flowers from both of these companies.

Baker Creek is charging a flat rate of $12 USD for shipping to Canada (free in the States) so the more you get from them, the more worth your while it is. Hence the group purchase, if you can.

Heritage Harvest offers free shipping on orders over $300 CDN but even though I order a swack of seeds, I have never made it to that dollar value. Mostly because I like to order a great variety so have to spread it around, so I just pay whatever it is because the seeds are worth it.

Organising the tomatoes to make sure I have everything I need.

I probably order 80% of my tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds from these two companies, plus odds and sods. The quality is exceptional, the seeds have great germination rates, and you get a decent number of seeds per package. Heritage Harvest has great peppers and eggplants, too.

Baker Creek carries many of the new open-pollinated tomatoes from Brad at Wild Boar Farms, like the Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, Brad's Atomic Grape, etc... or you can go straight to Wild Boar Farms and order direct. I have often done that, as well. They have super decent shipping rates so go crazy! I buy my favourite paste tomato here, as well, Martino's Roma.

Here is my Top Ten Tomatoes of 2021 (the heat dome year) if you want to look back on it to see some of my favourites. On that old blog, you can go to any October for the past 10 years and check out the favourites for that year, and why they made the list. I cannot mention where I buy each of the tomatoes on my lists, as there are way too many but will tell you what I tend to buy from each of the suppliers.

Added note - The two storage tomatoes that I buy (you pick them when they are pink, just before frost comes, put them in a cool place, and you will have homegrown tomatoes till Easter time) are Mystery Keeper from Heritage Harvest and Long Keeper from Tomato Fest.

Tomato Fest is another great source, with a great variety to choose from. It is also a great resource, just about anything you want to know about tomatoes, you will find on their website. You can easily buy all your tomatoes from this source, they carry just about everything.

This is where I buy the seeds from The Dwarf Tomato Project. My favourites to date, are Hannah's Prize, Purple Heart, Saucy Mary, Dwarf Audrey's Love, Tasmanian Chocolate, and Uluru Ocher.

I also buy many of my cherry types from here, early determinates, and some of the pastes for canning.

Yonder Hill Farm - a small seed house in Nova Scotia that I buy some staple tomatoes from that I cannot get anywhere else. This is where I get Heinz 2653, Glacier, and White Cherry (I had a few customers who absolutely love this pale-yellow cherry tomato and come back for it year after year) and sometimes also Black Plum, Sweet Tumbler, Tiger Mix, and Black Prince. The shipping was $5 for seeds but has now gone up to $6, very affordable.

Adaptive Seeds - is another small supplier that carries some of my must grow tomatoes but is from the States.

This is where I get Ropreco (hard to come by anywhere else), Sasha's Altai, and Gardener's Sweetheart. The shipping cost to Canada is killer so I order as many packages as I can to get right under that minimum dollar amount as I can, so will often throw in something new to try at the same time, like 'Dancing With Smurfs'. They also have a lovely selection of Amaranth.

Artisan Seeds - They sell the unique new varieties of open-pollinated seeds, like the different Bumblebees (Pink, Purple, Sunrise) and Tigers, plus Marzano's Fire but it looks like they are currently not selling to Canada, sadly. You can always email and ask, never hurts, (I have done that before). The website is a bit of a mess, but they have some fun varieties and are totally worth checking out.

Victory Seeds - Also a small American seed house with some really great varieties. The shipping is pretty costly.

They carry the Dwarf Tomato Project seeds that I mentioned above, and also Heidi, Oroma, Glacier, Gill's All-Purpose. Their website is super easy to shop as they break down into early, midseason, late, and into all the colours, or you can shop by determinate or indeterminate.

They carry all sorts of other heirloom veggies, too, like Ping Tung eggplants, one of my favourites.

Renee's Garden Seeds - I usually only get one tomato from here, Chianti Rose, though I buy almost everything else from them. Chianti Rose is a large pink coloured beefsteak type tomato that I have been growing for 2 decades and selling for at least 1. They have mixed packages of heirloom types, plus some of the favourites, as well, so you can certainly order all of your tomatoes from this one source.

Renee's seeds are of superb quality, highly recommended.

Peppers

Peppers - are you into growing the super-hot or the super unique? Check out the Pepper Merchant from Ontario.

Or, I have ordered from this American company quite a few times, check out Pepper Joe's. Joe sells only a few sweet varieties but has almost every sort of mild to super stinking crazy hot pepper you can possibly imagine. He also gives growing advice.

I buy most of my sweet peppers (and eggplants) from Heritage Harvest Seeds, in Manitoba but will pick up one or two from the others, if they have something that catches my eye. I am always on the lookout for small, tasty eggplants, as well. Eggplants have pretty much exactly the same growing needs as peppers, so I often lump them together.

Wildrose Heritage Seed Company has a great selection of both sweet and hot peppers. They sell most all of the ones (hot and sweet) that were the best sellers at my greenhouse, plus have the elusive Thai Dragon, as well.

Seeds to start in January. Pinned and ready for me.

Other....

Stokes Seeds - I very seldom order from here but often use it as a resource guide, or did when I was starting out the greenhouse, growing lots of new things. Want to know how to successfully start snapdragons or pansies? Yep, go here. They are a grower's seed supplier, have all sorts of things, but if you are new to starting seeds, or want to try growing something new, this is a great site to check out. They give you the dates, timing, heat, all the tips on how to grow just about everything.

Wildrose Heritage Seed Company - Lethbridge, Alberta

This little company has a good selection of veggies, especially love their pepper selection, as mentioned above. I have grown nearly all of the sweets over the years, all have done exceptionally well. I especially recommend King of the North, Orange King, and Marconi.

Annapolis Seeds - Nova Scotia - They have Ropreco, Heinz 2653, Speckled Roman, and Heidi paste tomatoes! and a great selection of soybeans! They also have the $5 shipping thing though it does not say how many packages you can ship for that $ amount. You would have to play with your order to put in as many packages as you can get... or call them ; )

Alpine strawberries grown from seed.

Those are my favourite seed sources for the greenhouse, and the home gardener.

Have any recommendations for your favourite flowers or veggies that you want to share? Pop it in the comments below.

Questions? Let me know!

Happy Seed Shopping! ~ Tanja