It’s no secret to ANY Canadian that inflation has taken a toll on food prices. Preppers have known about this eventuality for a long time, but most non preparedness minded folks are now just waking up to the phenomenon, and it’s a rude awakening indeed. Canadians from coast to coast are feeling the pinch and many are going to turn to home gardening to help make up the difference in grocery prices. Seeds will be a hot commodity this spring. We suggest getting ahead of the rush to avoid disappointment.
Seed saving is a great way to avoid all of this nonsense, so if you’re going to start gardening this year, or even if you’re a more experienced grower, going for heirloom seeds and learning to save them for coming years makes sense.
Explaining seed saving would be entirely too broad of a subject to cover in just one blog post, so here is a link to a great book on the subject.
Some retailers are beginning to include heirloom vegetable seed varieties in their selections, but most preppers will want more choice. The solution is online shopping. There are a number of Canadian sources of heirloom seeds with online stores. Let’s take a look at a few…
These folks are based in Montreal and are supplied by a popular produce vendor based out of the city’s famed Jean Talon Market. They have a huge variety of heirloom seeds including 66 varieties of tomato, 43 different herbs and 77 kinds of leafy greens.
Heritage Harvest Seed is a Canadian heirloom/heritage seed mail order company specializing in rare and endangered heirloom/heritage varieties of vegetables, flowers, herbs and ancient grain seeds. If it’s hard to find, they likely have it. Thinking of starting a crop of wheat, barley, oats, or amaranth? They’ve got them.
Pass the Grey Poupon? Ok, maybe not, but these guys are the only place I’ve seen dijon mustard seeds for making your own mustard condiment at home! They even have a purple kohlrabi, which I didn’t even know existed!
A lot of folks may only be hearing about these 3 e-commerce retailers for the first time, and that was kind of the point. Sure, you could always do an Amazon search, or try the popular sites such as Vessy’s, but these places have become very popular and will likely sell out fast. We’re trying to give you an advantage over the urban gardener by avoiding wasted time just to find no inventory.
Keep in mind that even now, at the end of January, each of the above companies had one or two sold out items. Get shopping now to avoid scrounging or missing out completely. We anticipate a seed shortage this year.