Common Sense Seeds

Happy Tomato Tuesday🍅❤️! Today I’d like to introduce a few Canadian tomatoes 🇨🇦 🍅that have been bred (or stewarded) for short growing seasons.

Pictured is one of our favourites -- Johnny Jumpup (the tomato🍅not the flower🌹).
• Bred at the Provincial Horticultural Station in Brooks, Alberta (1950s). (See photo from a 1950s agricultural publication)
• Compact (16-18") & makes a great container variety.
• Productive and covered with small tomatoes.
• Very good flavour. One of its parents is Burbank; a classic, great tasting tomato.
• Early and produces all summer

It’s not too late to start Johnny – in our Zone 4 gardens, we can start Johnny from seed into early May.

Other Canadian tomatoes we can start from seed into May and still have a harvest (not pictured):
• Arctic Pot N’Patio
• Porter’s Early Brookpact
• Cherry Gold
• Ross Red Salad Tomato
• House
• Siberian (honourary mention b/c it was selected by Canadian tomato breeder T.O. Graham (1960s) and then grown on Baffin Island in the Arctic❄️)

Happy Planting!

If you are looking for a fun gardening related thing to do today (Sun April 26) come see us at the Cochrane Gardening Expo! We will have our seeds and other vendors have plants and other wonderful things for your garden 🍅🌹🌷🪴

Living Sustainably . Event | COCHRANE & AREA GARDENING EXPO| Sunday, April 26 | 11am – 3pm

Get excited about digging in the dirt! Whether you’re an experienced gardener or the owner of untested garden tools this event will help you kick-off your gardening season with plants, seeds, accessories and tips for gardening in this (often challenging) zone!

VENDORS will get you ready for Spring planting with seeds, plants & accessories | EXPERIENCED LOCAL GARDENERS – chat & learn | SEED EXCHANGE TABLE operated by Cochrane & District Horticultural Society - Cochrane's Local Garden Club – bring your extra seeds & buy from the collection - 'pay what you can' with proceeds donated to a local charity.

The Gardening Expo offers three SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS:
11: 30 am: POLLINATORS AND SUSTAINABLE GARDENS | Sydney Worthy, Alberta Native Bee Council
12:30 pm: SOIL HEATH - THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL GARDENING | Sheryl Normandeau, Author
1:30 pm: REGENERATIVE YARD CARE | Kurt Stenberg, Arborist – cochranetreecare

Location: Cochrane Lions Club Event Centre ( 109 Fifth Avenue, Cochrane). Entry is free of charge.

Event information & VENDOR LIST: https://cochraneenvironment.org/cochrane-area-gardening.../

Invite your friends and neighbours to join you at the Gardening Expo!

We will be at this awesome event with our seeds! If you are in Calgary come and visit us.

Get ready to sprout up and grow your gardening knowledge 🌱

On Saturday, April 18, from 10 am to 3 pm at our South location, explore Seed & Sprout, a spring-inspired experience filled with local vendors and everything you need to kickstart the season.

Connect with local seed suppliers and growers to discover what thrives in Calgary’s climate. Bring your little sprouts along for a free Paint & Plant session where they can decorate a clay pot, plant their own seeds, and leave it to dry while you explore the market 🌿

Learn more about the event here: https://calgaryfarmersmarket.ca/market-event/seed-sprout/

Please note this is a cash-only event — an ATM will be available on site.

Happy Tomato Tuesday! 🍅❤️ Have you ever heard of ‘The Ketchup Song’ by Stompin’ Tom Connors? In 1970, the late Canadian folk/country singer Stompin’ Tom Connors wrote a song about the tomatoes of Leamington (The Tomato Capital of Canada) – called ‘The Ketchup Song’.

We have a tomato in our lineup from Leamington called ‘Leamington No 1’ – but didn’t make the connection to the Stompin’ Tom Connors song until Norma Dunmore pointed it out. Thank you!

Stompin’ Tom wrote ‘The Ketchup Song’ about a romance between a tomato 🍅from Leamington and a potato 🥔from Prince Edward Island. The song went to Number 1 on the Canadian Country Music Charts in 1970!😀
______________

The opening lyrics of ‘The Ketchup Song’:

“There was a guy from PEI they used to call Potato
He met this young Leamington, Ontario Tomato
But he had eyes for other girls, and she was a little mushy
So, they said “well let’s get wed”, no sense in being fussy.”
____________

And it gets better – there is a music video of ‘The Ketchup Song’ – that stars The Big Tomato from Leamington (in cartoon form) as the female lead (see The Big Tomato postcard c 1961).

You must watch this video. It will make your day. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiGb31e5ydo

I am thinking this must be the first and only music video in the world that stars a tomato. Mr. and Mrs. Tomato Head please let me know😊

Garden Your Concrete! 🍅🌱With tomatoes! Plant some pots on your patio or balcony, use that space for growing food. These tomato varieties are container friendly and easy to grow in small spaces.

One pot at a time you can Garden Your Concrete into a beautiful and healthy foodscape!🍅❤️🥕

Tomato 1 | Fire Drill is an all-around great tomato. Plants are small, sturdy, & about 18". The fruits are lovely – perfectly round with very good full tomato taste (sweet-tangy). The plants are huge producers.

Tomato 2 | Siam is a cute little tomato with bright red cherry tomatoes. Plants are 8" to 10". Siam is easy to grow in a 1 or 2 gallon container and makes a great table top/patio tomato.

Tomato 3 | Henry Harrington is a micro-dwarf tomato from New Zealand. Henry is a sturdy little tomato, 10”, with great tasting small red cherry tomatoes. This is the perfect tomato for a 1-gallon pot.

Tomato 4 | Varto is a lovely and hardy Estonian tomato. It is early, compact (18”) and was developed as a windowsill or greenhouse tomato. Varto has brilliant red fruit that weigh 50g to 100g.

Happy Planting!

A Tomato Valentine's Day haiku written by my son (a few years ago)! ❤️❤️ Happy Valentine's Day everyone❤️

Giant Tomato

As you plant the seeds
the vegetables start to grow
the hard work pays off.

Longkeepers rule! 🍅❤️ We have just saved seeds from the last of our longkeeper tomatoes (storage tomatoes) -- 4 months or so after they were picked at the end of August-beginning of September.

Pictured are Achatado (top 2 pictures) and Del Tonet (bottom 2 pictures). Both are from Spain.

Longkeepers are becoming a way of life for us here. What I mean by that, is that the idea of eating tomatoes from our garden in winter, as the snow is flying, is both a practical and comforting thing to do. It’s a little bit of the world that you can control. It’s a new skill for us, and for most gardeners to grow and store longkeepers, but I think it’s a good skill to have. It’s an “ecological reskilling”.

Just like any new skill you have to practice to get good at it. In the case of longkeepers, that means figuring out what varieties work in your garden, how to go about storing them, and even how to use them. But we don’t’ have to reinvent the wheel – we can tap into the knowledge base of the farmers in Spain and Italy who have been growing longkeepers for generations. Like us, they wanted to eat fresh tomatoes outside of their growing season. In addition to their long shelf-life capabilities, longkeepers have also been stewarded under low-irrigation conditions, traits that make them a good choice for water-wise gardens.

For all of these reasons, we are giving longkeepers more and more space in our garden.🍅🌱❤️

Happy Tomato Tuesday! 🍅❤️I am fascinated by longkeeper tomatoes – in particular Ramallet tomatoes from Majorca, Spain.

Pictured is Ramallet Sant Llorenc which was historically grown in the village of Sant Llorenc, Majorca. We picked these tomatoes in September from the garden and this is how they look in January. Ramallet Sant Llorenc has very good flavour – an umami sweet-tangy taste, even in Jan. They have thick skin and a wonderful peachy-red skin colour when ripe. Plants are 3 to 4 feet tall.

• New to longkeepers? At the end of summer pick your longkeepers (some will be ripe, some won't) and store them in a cool place. Ramallet Sant Llorenc can also be eaten when picked as its taste rivals regular season tomatoes.
• In Majorca, Ramallet tomatoes are hung in bunches to use over the winter. Traditionally they are used in a dish called 'pa am oli' -- translated from Mallorquin as 'bread and oil'. The 'Ark of Taste' describes 'pa am oli' as: "a slice of toast with a drizzle of oil on which the tomato is crushed. Sometimes, it is also accompanied by Jamon Serrano, cheese, local olives and pickles."

What makes a longkeeper a longkeeper? Ramallet Sant Llorenc tomatoes have a naturally occurring genetic trait -- the ‘alcobaca (alc)’ gene -- which affects ripening and extends shelf life.

However, genes aren’t everything. A paper on long shelf-life tomatoes found that reduced watering of long shelf-life tomatoes during cultivation is a key factor in determining storage quality after harvest. The authors write:
“Here we show that the LSL [long shelf-life] trait in those landraces is both partially a defined genetic component, in the form of the alcobaca (alc) mutation, and is profoundly affected by the irrigation regime during cultivation.”

The authors found that less water equated to longer storage life.

How to store longkeepers? Store tomatoes at 13 to 18 C (55 to 65 F) to keep them on “hold” for a while. A spot in your basement would do or a colder room in your house. Place longkeepers in a single layer in a cardboard box or on a shelf out of direct sunlight.

Longkeepers are a great way to extend the gardening season!

This is so cool. ❤️🌱The ‘Mansfield Tree Tomato’ has been one of my favourite finds. And now the great-great-great-great-great-grandson of William Mansfield, the gentleman who created the tomato in the 1870s, has gotten in touch!

His grandson (x5), Bryce, emailed me from California. His family thought the tomato was lost forever.

He remembers his grandfather talking about William’s giant ‘Tree Tomato’ – his grandfather didn’t meet William – but he met William’s son Frank. How amazing is that. He shared that William died in 1917 at age 94. Which means he was about 67 years old when the ‘Mansfield Tree Tomato’ entered the seed trade (around 1890) and the engraving of him was made (first picture).

A few years ago, I started the research on this tomato over Christmas holidays —it took months of sleuthing – and I just about gave up when the trail seemed to go cold. But then late one night, following a hunch, I found the ‘There Are No Chickens Up Here’ engraving published in the Mills Seed Company catalogue (1890) – and I traced the tomato back to William. Bryce added that William was 6’6” tall – which puts into perspective how tall the tomatoes in the engraving are.

The whole (long!) story is up on the website. So fun. This is one of the reasons I love to grow tomatoes from seed – it’s the joy of the story😊

This summer was a challenging one for beans. Mainly because we had some impolite voles doing a lot of sampling. They managed to completely destroy several varieties of beans we had planted. But we do have a few varieties to offer – including a few from the Paula Dubeski Bean Collection!

First, the Paula Dubeski Bean Collection.

Paula is a long-time seed saver in Lacombe, Alberta who has kindly shared her bean collection with us! We are so grateful to Paula. Over the years, Paula has sought out hardy, early season varieties and then trialed and stewarded these beans in her Zone 3b garden. Paula, along with her growing partner Amy, have helped make these early season beans even better through their efforts to adapt these varieties to the challenges of her Zone 3b gardens. Over time we will continue to add more of her beans to our lineup.

We have also shared Paula’s collection with the Calgary Seed Library and their members did a grow out of 3 bean varieties this summer.

Pictured are 4 of the bean varieties from Paula’s collection we have in our 2026 catalogue.

King of the Early (bush bean) – mottled, burgundy and tan bean-- is a fantastic bean for short growing seasons. The large, plumb beans dry down before the first frost, and the yields are high.

Maine Sunset (bush bean) -- ivory-white and maroon beans-- each bean has a different splotch of maroon making each bean uniquely beautiful.

White Cloud Cannellini (bush bean) -- a lovely large white bean (kidney shaped) that is great for short seasons. Paula notes this Cannellini variety is earlier and more dependable than other cannellini varieties.

Tiger’s Eye (bush bean) -- the colour of the dry beans is stunning – a deep tan to mustard base with purple to maroon swirls. The beans do resemble tiger’s eye stones.

The late bean breeder extraordinaire Robert Lobitz is quoted as saying: "Beans are a poor man's jewels" -- indeed, these beans will remind you of beautiful gems. And we will add -- you are rich in so many ways beyond money when you have beans planted in your backyard!

Happy Planting ❤️

The Fragrant Garden. Part III. As winter approaches, our summer garden is now a thing of the past – but the fragrant garden is still a sharp memory! Here is the stunning Dianthus isensis we grew this summer.

This flower makes you appreciate that the translation of Dianthus is ‘Flower of the Gods’.

Scientific name: Dianthus isensis

English name: Dancing Geisha

Japanese name: Ise Dianthus, Satsuma Dianthus, Osaka Dianthus, Gosho Dianthus

Flower colours: pink, white, red, purple

Fragrance: mild

Height: 30 cm to 50 cm + drooping petals can be 10+ cm long!

This heirloom Dianthus was developed in the Edo period in Japan (1603 to 1868). Information from the Encyclopedia of Horticultural Plants (Japanese edition, edited by Tsukamoto Yutaro; info via www.nio.sakura.ne.jp) states it was created by a samurai from the Kishu region who lived in Matsusaka.

Despite its otherworldly appearance, Dianthus isensis is easy to start from seed and easy to take care of. It blooms the first year from seed and is perennial down to Zone 5.

Fingers crossed we see you next year beautiful Dianthus isensis in our Zone 4 garden!