It’s not uncommon for 90-100 tomato varieties to be under trial at the same time.īoth new and existing varieties of seeds in the annual Vesey’s seed catalogue get tested every year. The company has two acres of trial plots for regular vegetable seeds and one acre for hot field crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. It is important that imported seeds pass the germination test as well as a purity test for no diseases or weeds. However, before a seed variety will be offered for sale, it will be grown and tested in Vesey’s trial plots, usually over a couple of years so the seeds can be tested over different summers with different growing conditions. Vesey’s seeds come from all over the world. Today, he is joined by a son and daughter who also work at Vesey’s, a company known for its excellent seed quality products, loyalty to customers, and good customer service. The current owner, Bev Simpson, began working with Mr.
Vesey’s Seeds was started in 1939 by Arthur Vesey (now deceased). Every seed that appears in Vesey’s catalogue has been grown in a trial plot at Vesey’s to ensure it will grow in our Island climate. Heidi has been with the company for five years and supervises the seeds that are brought in for trials and monitors how well they do in the vegetable trials. I recently sat down with Heidi Carmichael, horticulturalist at Vesey’s, to talk about the seed company’s operation. This year marks the 75 th Anniversary that Vesey’s has been in business. Today, we plant a smaller garden but still use Vesey’s seeds because we know we can trust them as they have been tested to ensure they will grow in PEI’s short growing season. I think my grandmother got great pleasure out of tending her garden and harvesting and processing its products.
That’s why she relied on Vesey’s seeds that she trusted to produce a good garden.
Import yummysoup into paprika how to#
She and my grandfather would debate over the straightness of the drills because, if they weren’t in proper line, people driving by would think they didn’t know how to plant a garden! And, she wanted to make sure the garden looked full and lush because no one wanted to be known for having a “poor” garden.
My grandmother’s garden was always large. Once the frost was out of the ground in June, out would come the Vesey’s box of seeds and the planting process would begin. You see, in my grandmother’s time, there were no big supermarkets with imported produce and, as far as farmers markets were concerned, they weren’t an item in rural PEI because most everyone had their own vegetable gardens in which they grew the produce they needed. Pumpkins and squash joined them and were used for jams and pies through the long, cold winter months. Cucumbers were grown for pickles beets would be canned parsnips, onions, and carrots were stored in cold cellars for use over the winter. In-season, families would enjoy fresh produce from their gardens but they also ate from the gardens for the rest of the year, too. Planting a garden was of particular importance to my grandmother’s generation because the produce from the garden was what sustained a family through much of the year. However, in my grandmother’s day, this would have been about an hour’s drive from her house and her way of doing much business was by regular postal service. Today, we either order the seeds online, by phone, mail or, for many of us Islanders, we simply drive to the Vesey’s store to pick up the seeds. Now, this might not seem strange to you but what is ironic about it is that this woman never ordered a different variety of beans, peas, lettuce, or any other seed from one year to the next! Nevertheless, she sure enjoyed those little catalogues (particularly when they started to have photographs in them) and, each spring, she would mail off her seed order (on an order form much like the one in the photo below) and, a few weeks later, the much anticipated small white box of seeds would arrive in the mail from Vesey’s in York, PEI. Vesey’s Seed Catalogues Throughout the Years She would spend many an hour perusing the catalogue, marking an “x” beside the seeds she planned to order and turning down the relevant pages. I well remember my grandmother receiving, by mail, the white envelope bearing the Vesey’s seed catalogue. My family has a long history of planting Vesey’s seeds.
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