Our gardens are located in St-Apollinaire, Quebec. We produce about 90% of the seeds offered on this site ourselves. They are open-pollinated (non-hybrid), reproducible, non-treated and non-GMO seeds. We cultivate in an ecological way with natural fertilizers and without irrigation. We do not use herbicides, pesticides or synthetic fertilizers.
Due to the difficulty or impossibility of producing certain varieties, approximately 10% of the seed offered is from other companies. These are seeds of ecological or certified organic crops, ‘must-have’ varieties that we grow and that are well adapted to our region, hardiness zone 4b.
The germination rate is stated on each envelope as well as the quantity of seed and information useful for sowing(information useful for sowing is according to hardiness zone 4b).
Once the seeds are harvested and dried, extraction and cleaning to remove all impurities begins in October and continues through November and December. Germination tests are done every year in November and December. See video shot the last week of November 2022. We can then update the information on the site for early January.
The choice of varieties
We trial between 50 and 100 new varieties each year. For tomatoes alone, it is usually 30 to 50 varieties every year. This way we only produce the seeds of our favorites!
Selection criteria
Depending on the type of vegetable, the following criteria guide our choices Good flavor; good production; uniform enough and must match the variety; resistance to different growing conditions; rarity: if the variety is widely available, easy to find in Quebec or Canada, we probably won’t produce it, except for some very popular classics like Butternut squash, Nantes carrot, basil, parsley, etc…
Depending on the type of flower, our selection is rather based on these criteria: Ornamental interest; long flowering; easy to germinate; easy to grow; resistance; useful for pollinators, butterflies and birds; cut flowers.