West Coast Seeds

Ella Organic dill seeds are CERTIFIED ORGANIC! Finally, a dill variety for the patio herb garden! Ella is a dwarf dill bred for container and hydroponic growing. She has short leaf internodes, so she stays compact and bushy at 25-36cm (10-14"), but with all the great fragrance and flavour of a giant garden dill.

The structure of dill's flowers is known as an umbel, so dill is considered an umbelliferous plant. Other umbellifers include carrots, cilantro, fennel, parsnips, and Ammi. All of these plants are attractive to predatory insects such as lady beetles, Syrphid flies (hover-flies), lacewings, and tiny parasitoid wasps. Organic gardeners take advantage of this natural food chain by growing dill precisely to attract these beneficial insects, for they will control pest insects like aphids, thrips, whitefly, and the caterpillar of the Small White Butterfly (cabbage moth).

Flat, dark green leaves are deeply cut, with a rich parsley flavour ideal for cooking or salads. Dark Green Italian Parsley Seeds are easy to grow, sturdy plants with stiff upright stems. Holds flavour better than the curly kind when dried. Use parsley in companion planting: Parsley likes asparagus, carrots, chives, corn, onions, and tomatoes. The leaves can be sprinkled on asparagus to repel asparagus beetles, and around roses, to improve their scent. Let some of your parsley go to bloom to attract hover-flies and predatory wasps. Parsley is a biennial plant that forms a long (edible) tap root. Choose deep pots for container growing.

Matures in 80 days

CERTIFIED ORGANIC. This parthenocarpic, early variety bears an abundance of 7-8cm (2.5-3 inch) fruit that are perfect for snacking. Mini-Me is a productive plant that performs well in the field as well as in greenhouses as it does not require pollination. The mini cucumbers are uniform with smooth skins and crisp, mildly sweet flesh. Harvest the cucumbers often so plants keep producing. An excellent choice to fill lunch boxes and crudités platters!

Few bell pepper varieties can compete with the reliable plants produced by California Wonder pepper seeds. In a greenhouse, open field, or in your backyard vegetable garden, this is the variety to grow if you love big, blocky sweet peppers that mature from green to bright fire engine red. The four-lobed fruits are heavy with perfectly smooth skins, and grow to nearly 13cm (5") long and 10cm (4") wide on plants that can grow to 65cm (28") tall. Give this excellent variety very fertile soil and even moisture throughout the growing season, and it will reward you with abundant, perfect fruits with exactly the flavour and moisture content you would expect from the best green grocer.

Matures in 65-75 days. Open-pollinated seeds

Plant Strike bush bean seeds for productive, upright plants with good disease resistance. The pods are round, medium green, slender, and stringless, coming in a concentrated set for easy harvesting. The beans have a very pleasant texture when cooked, and they maintain their flavour after freezing for winter use. Perfect for the home garden, and favoured by large scale producers for their ability to ship and store well. Strike is BCMV and NY15 resistant. Try growing Strike in larger containers like half barrels or even our garden pea and bean grow bags.

Matures in 55 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)

This old heirloom shelling pea dates back to 1880. It's a versatile, tasty, reliable pea that grows well in cool soil, so it's great for the north, and has good potential for spring and fall plantings. The short vines grow to only 90cm (36), but benefit from some twigs stuck in the soil for support - or a low trellis net. Once known as 'Earliest of All,' Alaska pea matures in just 55 days, making it our earliest pea of all. Expect heavy yields of round, straight, pale green pods, each containing five to eight smooth peas. For drying as soup peas, let the plants mature to 80 days.

Matures in 55 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)

Dwarf Grey Sugar snow pea seeds produce the earliest and most dwarf edible pods of all. The prolific, bushy vines grow to 1.5m (5') tall, and benefit from staking. Very attractive sweet pea-like flowers are followed by clusters of flat, fleshy, curved, semi-pointed pods. These are light green and average 6-8cm (2.5-3"), appearing at the tops of the plants for easy picking. This old heirloom variety was listed once as Dwarf Gray Sugar Cabbage Pea, and has been in production since before 1773. Dwarf Grey Sugar snow pea seeds were first sold commercially in 1892 by D.M Ferry and Company. This is one of the best choices for growing pea shoots and pea tips.

Matures in 66 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)

Oregon Giant snow pea seeds produce plants with unusually large, broad 13cm (5") long pods are thick and very sweet. They are most tender when peas begin to form but remain so up to the very largest sizes. Plants stay short at only 1.2m (4'). This variety is very resistant to pea enation virus and powdery mildew, which makes it a good candidate for late sowing and summer/fall harvest. Sow as late as July, and enjoy a second fall crop. Enation virus is a serious problem for peas in our region, so if you're planting peas after April first, choose enation-resistant varieties only. Winner of the RHS Award of Garden Merit.

Matures in 70 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)

Mokum carrot seeds are back by popular demand! The finest flavour and so crisp and delicate that it actually has to be hand dug, not just pulled out by the tops. You can enjoy these as baby carrots (they colour up quickly) or longer at 15-20 cm (6-8"). These deep orange carrots are high in Vitamin A and sugars. Mokum is an Amsterdam type - an imperator with blunt (as opposed to pointed) ends. Be sure to plant this variety in soil that has been deeply cultivated. Use a garden fork to break up all dirt clods and remove all stones. And thinning carrots is critical if you want them to grow straight and unblemished.

Matures in 60 days. (Hybrid seeds)

This French filet type bean has superb flavour. The tender, uniform, 10cm (4”) long beans are produced in abundant yields on tidy, upright plants. The plants’ petite size make them a good choice for containers. Masai bush bean is resistant to BCMV, and tolerant to Curly Top virus, bacterial brown spot, and halo blight. The beans are produced in a concentrated set on the upper half of the plants, so they are easy to see and harvest. Try some in the balcony vegetable garden or community plot.

Matures in 55 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)

Mentha x piperata. Hot, rich mint aroma issues from the crushed or dried leaves of this spreading perennial plant. Consider growing Peppermint seeds in containers, as it will become hard to control over the years. Both the leaves and flowers can be dried for teas or use in stews and sauces. Peppermint grows well in moist soil in full sun to heavy shade. Mint flowers are edible, and highly attractive to bees and other pollinators. Mint plants spread by an ever-expanding rhizome that grows parallel with the soil. Along its length, new stems emerge with new leaves and flowers. This is why many gardeners prefer to grow mint in containers than in the open soil.

This spiny little hybrid was bred for harvest and pickling the perfect gherkin pickles. But even when the odd one grew to full size in our field trials, they never became bitter. The productive plants kept the crop coming all summer in the field, but they would also work well in a greenhouse setting. The large, bushy plants are parthenocarpic, so they do not require pollination. Usually Artist Gherkin is harvested at such a small stage that even if it is pollinated outdoors, there will not be any seed development yet. Give the fruits a gentle rub with a cloth at harvest time, and the spines easily break off.

These seeds are coated with an inert, organically certified layer which helps to minimize clumping in storage and seed sowing machines. The coating is approved by organic certifiers in Canada, the US, EU, and Japan.

Matures in 45 days. (Hybrid seeds)

Early Wonder Tall Top beet seeds beets adapt to all seasons but are especially good in early spring with quick growth in chilly soils. They produce tall, tasty green leaves with red stems and slightly flattened roots with wonderfully sweet flavour. Early Wonder Tall Top beets makes a good variety for general table use. Grow as micro-greens or baby leaf greens for salad mixes, or enjoy the sweet round roots at full size. Be sure to thin the planted row to allow each root the room it needs to grow to full size.

Matures in 60 days. (Open-pollinated seeds)