Seeds - All
Hand harvested seeds from Carly's homestead garden. Find unique and rare veggies, herbs, native plants and more.
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32 products
32 products
An excellent choice for small gardens and containers! Sugar Ann peas only grow 2 ft. tall, and do not require a trellis. Incredibly sweet, crisp, fresh pods about 2" long. I eat them right off the vine in the morning when they're cool.
If any sugar snap peas make it in the house, store them in a container of water in the fridge to keep them crisp. Delicious raw, stir fried or lightly steamed. Kids love 'em.
Type: Vegetable
Height: 2 ft.
Light: full sun
Soil: well drained with good organic matter; add compost before planting
Planting: Peas prefer cool temperatures. Plant as soon as the soil can be worked, from later winter-early spring (container/raised bed soil warms up quicker!). Sow 1" deep, 1-3" apart. Try for a fall crop by planting again late summer if it's not too hot
Harvest: 55-60 days
Sunflowers are a must-grow annual each season - their bright, cheery faces make me smile, and I absolutely love them in fall bouquets. They're always covered in bees of all sizes, even ladybugs. Then the birds, squirrels and chipmunks feast on the seeds.
I adore Ring of Fire, with their chocolate brown centres surrounded by golden yellow petals that turn to red. People ask me about them every year. I find the more sun they get, the deeper the red colour.
Ring of Fire is a basal branching variety, so you get multiple blooms off each plant. When you're tight on space, this is a bonus. Succession plant the seeds for continuous blooms.
Chipmunks and squirrels LOVE sunflower seeds and small shoots, and will relentlessly dig up the seeds and/or chop the tender plants off. My neighbours have heard my sobs and swearing in equal measure over the years. Here are my tried and tested ways to fight them:
- Direct sow seeds in containers or pots, then completely cage them with small-holed wire mesh (forget plastic - they will eat right through it) for as long as possible
- Start seeds indoors 4 weeks before last frost, then transplant to the garden with tall, wire mesh collars around the seedlings and DO NOT remove all season
Note: I learned the hard way that sunflowers are allelopathic, meaning they give off toxins that impede the growth of or even kill other plants. They also deplete soil of nutrients. Because I grow so much food in containers, I now grow my sunflowers in separate pots and place them near their fruit, veg and herb companions
Type: Annual
Height: 4-5 ft.
Light: full sun
Soil: heavy feeders, sunflowers need organically-rich soil that's well draining
Planting: Sow in warm soil after the danger of frost, 1/2" deep, 6" apart
Harvest: 8-12 weeks
If I could only grow one variety of tomatoes each year, Candyland would be it. These teeny toms literally taste like pops of sugar, and are non-stop, prolific producers. Long after other tomatoes in my gardens are finished, Candyland produce until hard frost kills the plant.
Indeterminate + requires staking.