Growing an Heirloom Garden

      I know it is early but I ordered seeds for my garden today just to have something to live for. February in Nova Scotia sucks. Even though it is snowy and cold outside the search for seeds online made me feel excited for the coming spring. Looking through all the vibrant and delicious looking pics of the vast varieties of fruit and veggies to grow felt like looking through the Sears Christmas Wishbook as a child. What to pick? Where to order from? So much to choose from, I could barely decide

I want this to be my pantry by the end of the summer!

     I settled on the "where" question first. After a lot of looking, I settled on two amazing Canadian online seed distributors. Both had easy to use web sites (important for me) and a colossal amount of seeds to choose from. The first one is called Sage Gardens http://www.herbs.mb.ca/ and the second one is The Cottage Gardner http://www.cottagegardener.com/. 

Cool heirloom seeds.

       Feeling confident about and a little cocky about my successful garden last year, I decided I needed a bit of a challenge when it came to the "What" question.  This challenge came to me in the form of heirloom gardening. What is heirloom gardening? Basically it is retro gardening. The heirlooms are varieties that have been introduced before 1951. Many of them are 50-100 years old or even older. The seeds have been saved and passed down through the generations. No hybrids.Therefore, they look and taste like their parent plant. A tomato actually tastes like a tomato! How novel! The challenge comes in the form of growing these puppies. Apparently the seeds are slow to start, need lots of attention and can grow in strange ways. But I feel I am up for it. So I am saying....so long hybrids and hello heirlooms! We'll see how it goes!

Strange heirloom

I hope I grow one of these!