See the chart below for tomato uses in the kitchen. Use this chart to select varieties to grow depending on how you like to enjoy your tomatoes. This will help optimize your seed selection!...
As the frost recedes, the possibilities in our gardens expand. Around March 28, gardeners along the south coastal regions of British Columbia witness the last average frost date. This pivotal time signals a period...
Peas, Pole Beans, Indeterminate Tomatoes and Cucumbers make great vegetables to grow along an arch or trellis. By growing vertically, you’ll get more sun, better air circulation (which also means less chance of disease),...
West Coast Seeds has conducted significant research into the companion planting guidelines and has defined the best possible results and reasons for each of our recommendations in our companion planting chart, below are a...
These big sprawling plants are easier to grow than tomatoes and do not require any protection from rain. Their fruits develop within a distinctive, paper-like wrapper that forms from the calyx of the flower....
Tomatoes like fertile, well drained soil that is high in organic matter. Dig in finished compost and manure, and add 1 cup complete organic fertilizer beneath each transplant. The nutrition from heavy clay soils...
Crop rotation is the practice of not growing plants where similar plants grew the previous year. Crop rotation prevents the build up of pests and diseases and optimizes the use of soil nutrients. Plants from...
Author and blogger Andrea Bellamy recommends these varieties for container growing on balconies and in other small spaces. These seeds are perfect for the urban grower or part-time farmer who lacks garden space, but...
There are some very interesting facts about tomatoes. No one can say for certain, but the ancestor of all modern tomato varieties appears to have been a scrambling vine that was native to the...
There’s nothing quite as perfect as a ripe tomato – that distinctive fresh, green smell of a sun-warmed fruit that bursts in the mouth. It speaks of the summer’s heat like nothing else in the garden...
It’s a beautiful summer day. Since sowing your tomato seeds in Spring, you’ve been nurturing your container garden, preparing for harvest. There is nothing like a juicy, summer-ripened tomato fresh from the garden. Finally,...
Gardening instructions can be full of peculiar phrases from British gardening traditions. “Potting on,” “pricking out,” and “hardening off” are all things we do with seedlings to help them prepare for eventual transplanting out...
This is a list of seeds to start in April for south coastal British Columbia and the US Pacific Northwest. Finally it’s April and we are past the last average frost date in the...
It is thought that there are over three thousand heirloom tomatoes in cultivation, from the very well known Black Krim to the rather more obscure Sibirskiy Skorospely (Early Siberian). With modern bred open pollinated...
These instructions will help you plan your garden, making a cloche greenhouse configuration, choose your covering material and pipe frame. Then they will help you set up your greenhouse and make the very best...
We’ve often spoken to gardeners who just shake their heads despairingly when we mention growing tomatoes. The Tomato Late Blight fungus really has hit Coastal gardeners hard and, from what we hear, has now even...
In this time of garden dreaming, you may be dreaming of a child’s garden as well, whether it’s for your own family or for a school or childcare centre. Or perhaps your budding gardeners...
Have you heard the chickadees chatting about their spring plans? Yes, spring is on the way. The birds know it and the plants know it too, as the tiny tops of bulbs begin to...
Preserving Summer Morning chill and shorter daylight hours signify the slowing down of the summer garden. We harvest and share the last of our favourites – tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, corn, peppers, but we also...
There are many combinations of plants for interplanting – which combination suits your needs the most? One way of maximizing the return from garden space is to interplant crops. This is the practice of...
