Garden Seeds Are In
By Jos Van Hage
I always enjoy going through the seed rack displays to see what is new, old and interesting.
For 2009 I noticed my old favorites were there. The ‘Detroit Dark Red Beets’, the ‘Blue Lake’ bush green bean, ‘Nantes’ carrots, ‘Bloomsdale’ spinach, ‘Cherry Belle’ radish, etc.. 
I also noticed some fun and interesting things that kids would really enjoy trying as well as any other gardener.
The first is from “Thompson & Morgan” and it is a type of Kale called ‘Walking Stick’. (shown in photo at right)
It is considered a novelty vegetable for the garden as it grows up to 2.1 meters tall and the stout stems can be dried and made into walking sticks. On top of the tall stem is a crown of greens and no mention is on the package on how tasty the greens are. It does require a long growing period of 180 days to maturity so the seeds need to be started indoors around mid March and then planted outdoors in mid May after the last frost. It is a member of the brassica family which includes cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi.
Another seed packet that caught my eye is also from ‘Thompson & Morgan’ and this is a gourd variety called ‘Snake’. Gourds are decorative and are dried and used for decoration. There are many different varieties with lots of different shapes, styles, and sizes and the ‘snake’ variety grows light green, narrow gourds that are dried and then painted to look like snakes. This would be a plant that kids would really enjoy having in the garden. The plant itself trails and can be trained to climb along archways or obelisks, or can be left to trail along the ground similar to growing squash, pumpkins, or cucumbers which are all in the same family.
If you like carrots as most people do you may want to try the variety ‘Rainbow’ which as the name implies is a variety of carrots that produces carrots that come in three different colors with 3 different flavors. There is salmon-orange carrots that are “rich and bold”, yellow carrots that are “extra sweet” and the white carrots that are the “most mild”. These seeds are available from the seed line ‘The Cook’s Garden’, which is a line of seed that may interest gardeners who like to cook and have a small garden.
‘The Cook’s Garden’ line have some seed packets that contain more than one variety of a vegetable such as the lettuce, peppers carrots and others. It also carries varieties that are different such as the purple beans and many of the packets have a recipe on the back with a suggestion on how to prepare the vegetable. Another line of seeds that would interest cooks and Italians are the ‘Gusto Italia’ line which comprises of seed varieties that are of Italian origin or used in Italian cooking.
One other line of seeds that may interest gardeners, especially those that want to grow organically is the ‘Organic’ line of seeds brought out by ‘Burpee’. They have a large selection of organic seeds in most of the more popular vegetable varieties and herbs.
- Highway 97 north at Northwood Pulpmill Road
- Highway 16 West at Kimball Road.
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