Hardy and Heirlooms Too!

Found a wonderful site today that offers all kinds of hardy and heirloom vegetable and grain seeds.  It's called Prairie Garden Seeds and is ran by a man named Jim Ternier.  I was pleased beyond reason to discover that the Cold Set tomatoes I had already ordered through Henry Field's were offered on this site as well and that they date back to 1961.  Of course, I didn't get away without picking up a few seeds I didn't already have.  For one, I was thrilled to find Homesteader peas.  They used to be one of the most widely available old standards for our northern gardens, but in the last few years they have been replaced by new and so-called improved varieties and now you can't find them in any of the usual big catalogues.  I've started growing Green Arrow instead but they don't taste as sweet as Homesteader did.  As Jim mentions on his site, Homesteader is susceptible to powdery mildew later in the season but apart from being a bit unsightly, it doesn't really hurt anything.  I am so pleased.  I am going to try to save my own seed so I never have to worry about not having any Homesteader peas again. 

I also ordered some Dwarf Multicolored Corn that is supposed to be excellent for making cornmeal.  I recently read about how ground cornmeal has an extremely short shelf life, so the stuff we buy in the store has had all the life - plus nutrients and flavour - stripped out of it leaving a tastless but long lasting meal.  It described the taste of freshly ground cornmeal in such tantalizing language that my mouth was practically watering.  It seems a sad thing to never have tasted the real stuff.  If you grow your own field corn you can store the dried kernels indefinitely and then just grind up a few cups at a time as you need it.  It will only keep for something like two weeks after you grind it. 

I had already ordered some Seneca Arrowhead sweet corn (62 days!) from William Dam but couldn't resist ordering some Simonet sweet corn from Jim as well.  He says its his most popular seller and since it was bred by someone in Edmonton and Jim grows his seed outside of Humboldt Saskatchewan, it should do well here in the Peace Country.  I hope.  The only problem is that you can't grow field corn and sweet corn beside each other or they will cross pollinate, so I will have to figure out a way to have two corn plots a couple hundred feet apart.  I ordered some Lacinato Rainbow Kale too, which looks really interesting.

Now I am feeling a bit redeemed for all my hybrid orders . . .