“ I ’ve always been fascinate at the prolificness of seeds and how one plant can potentially give you hundreds more , ” says Brijette Peña , proprietor of theSan Diego Seed Company . “ That ’s still amazing to me now , even a decade later . ”
specialise in supply topically - source constitutive seeds that are orient to the need of the American southwest — along with catering to urban growers deal with a paucity of blank — the latest gain to the San Diego Seed Company ’s vivacious bank vault include Formosan purple hardneck garlic , lizard spinach seed and optic - catching cocoa cherry sunflower seeds .
We spoke to Peña about repurposing bathtubs into growing containers and adapting seeds to meet the demands drouth - prone regions . We also got into the endure appeal of grow tomato .
In Need of Seeds
A C. W. Post shared by San Diego Seed Company ( @sandiegoseedcompany )
“ We got involved in source out of a demand , ” says Peña when she muse back on the origin story of her society . “ We realized that nobody was really focusing on drouth - tolerant varieties for the American southwestward , ” she adds . “ So it all blossomed out of that . ”
Read more : Should your farm consider selling vegetable seeds ?
Adapting to Seasonal Demands
Addressing the kinetics of growing in southerly California , Peña explains that trade with long warm seasons and short cool seasons factors into which crops prosper .
“ We ’re looking for varieties that do well in very hot dry climate , ” she says . “ We get less than 10 inch of pelting in a good class . We ’re open of growing warm time of year salmagundi from February to November , which is very unlike to other parts of the United States . ”
Saluting Corn & Carrots
This year , the San Diego Seed Company conducted a number of successful edible corn grow out . “ It ’s been so much fun shuck the corn and visualize the volume of seed we ’ve gotten off of it , ” says Peña .
Alongside maize , Peña adds that carrot time of year is her favourite output period : “ It smells amazing and very few hoi polloi actually get to see a cultivated carrot grow from seed . It ’s a special experience . ”
take more : Storage corn is a rewarding garden craw .
2021’s Most Popular Seeds
“ We ’ve sell a lot of garlic this year , ” says Peña when asked about the company ’s most popular seeds . “ That ’s been really fun because masses are just really frantic to grow their own garlic . ”
Peña says that Lycopersicon esculentum are also continually one of the the cum company ’s bountiful draws . “ People love tomatoes because of the massive genetic variety within that crop group , ” she explain . “ There ’s century of thousands of variety show of tomatoes out there and some are particularly eccentric and the great unwashed eff them . ”
Improvised Growing Spaces
When it comes to rise in pissed urban spaces , Peña has witnessed her client getting creative . “ I ’ve seen mass growing in bathtubs and large fiberglass containers , ” she say . “ We have a Brobdingnagian community of container agriculturalist using all different type and size , like extemporize with a shopping cart lined with burlap . We ’ve see it all . ”
