Naturally Simple Blog

I thought I would take a break from the herbs to talk about one of my other favorite subjects: playing in the dirt.   It is the time of year when gardening enthusiasts are beginning to plan gardens and order seeds.   My friend, Tom, asked me for more information about this company on my “Safe Seeds” post so I went out and dug some up.  (tee hee hee -gardening pun intended).

First, I thought I would share my personal experience with the seeds.  I found Botanical Interests Seeds for the first time last year at a local nursery.  I should warn local friends who know where I shop that their selection is pretty limited compared to what is available online.

I admit that it was the artwork that drew my attention to the seed packets, originally.

As I examined the packets, I continued to like what I was reading and is there ever there a lot to read.  These might be the most informative seed packets I have ever run across! The fun doesn’t stop on the outside though, so be quite careful when opening your first Botanical Interests seed packet.

Of course, while all this information is nice, I only bought a few packets to “test them out” .  The seeds are suprisingly inexpensive for organics.
I had fantastic results!   My Trionfo Violetto Pole Beans outgrew and outproduced my Kentucky Wonder Beans.   I think my Dwarf Blue Kale  might still be alive out there under the piles of snow. My favorites was the Broccoli Di Cicco.  I started it indoors and was quite satisfied with the germination rate.   I am not going to claim 100% but we certainly had a lot of sprouts for a salad when it came time for thinning.   My transplants went in next to four nursery plants that were supposed to be my early producers.  Within a few weeks, the Di Cicco had out grown them and produced before they did.  In fact, it was still producing when we got our first snowfall.   My groundhogs adored it but that is another issue entirely.

Earlier in the month, when I started to think about  planning my garden,  I looked  around online to find the company.   I was pleased with the quality of the information on their website and blog.  I also enjoy the selection of heirlooms.  I found a lot of the varieties mentioned in my favorite gardening book:  Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden: Creative Gardening for the Adventurous Cook that I haven’t been able to find, locally.

So with my personal experiences out of the way,  here is some information about the company.  Botanical Interests is a family owned and operated business started by Curtis and Judy Seaborn in 1995.  Their business objectives are “to inspire and educate gardeners; to provide high quality seed to their customers; and to create an enjoyable work place for employees.” I included links to the companies blog and an article about the company at the end of this article.
All-in-all it seems like a good company and I plan on spending a good share of my gardening budget at their website.

Additional Reading:

California Garden Magazine Article

Botanical Interests Blog

Company Profile

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 9:07 pm and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.