Fresh Seed 2026
Some of what we're growing--and growing again--this summer
The blue beech tomato was new to us in 2025, and where has it been all our growing life? This isn’t one of those trick pictures like fisherfolks produce to make the fish look larger.
This is one hefty fruit, and they call it a paste tomato, but that seems to narrow its use to sauces. We liked it for slicing fresh, and we’ll be getting some new seed doe 2026. Johnny’s describes it nicely:
This "sausage" type paste tomato produces large, 8–10 oz., elongated fruits that are easy to process into sauce. An excellent canning tomato, it also tastes great when eaten fresh. Attractive green shoulders give a distinct heirloom look. Fruits ripen during a concentrated period, allowing for a more efficient canning process. It is well-adapted to northern climates, and resists disease and blossom end rot better than others of its type. This strain of Blue Beech was originally brought to Vermont from Italy during WWII.
Just delivered from Row 7, some updated seeds for old favorites:
Here’s Sweet Prince on a loaded vine. I love this tomato.
Berkley Pink Tie Dye, beautifully inscribed. Need to check how recent our seed is. Last spring we had some non starters in all categories. I tend to save seeds from year to year because they seem to germinate well. But…ten years might be pushing it.
Pink Ping Pong, you are a ping pong ball-sized gem among tomatoes, appearing just in time after it warms up and lasting late into autumn.
It’s 12F outside this morning, but never too early to review our collection of cool-weather spring greens. I just ordered lots more from Wild Garden Seed, a favorite purveyor.
Greens, glorious greens…
How can it be mid-January? Time to start onion seed, a first for us this year, and other goodies coming from Hudson Valley Seed Company in New York State. Oddly, if you draw a map from HVSC to Wild Garden Seed in the Willamette Valley of Oregon you drive past the southern tip of Lake Michigan and our region. Could be this latitude suits us.
We had a plethora of tree frogs last summer, sweet little green beings who came to visit up on the deck. One of them even traveled into the kitchen undetected on the bread plate.
Heidi: the bright colours of these beautiful vegetables were a treat to enjoy on a dark freezing gray Montreal morning…. And those adorable tree frogs!!!
Heidi, these pics of your tomatoes are astounding. And the little tree frog…how cute. A friend in the kitchen. I love the pictures of the seed packets. We’ll get our tiny garden up to speed again this year and hopefully we will get zucchini. It was a bad year in the Pacific Northwest for zucchini. Thanks for sharing.