It looks like spring has finally come to Toronto, and it’s time to start thinking about gardening. Even if you only have a small yard or deck, you can grow at least some of your own food. Now is the time to start cultivating most varieties of seeds indoors for transplanting - herbs, beans, and tomatoes are easy to grow and can be grown in containers. It’s a relaxing hobby that can save you money. In addition, you can help keep heirloom plants in circulation.

Many of the fruits and vegetables in supermarkets have been bred for their ability to withstand automated cultivation processes and long shipping distances. They may look good on the shelves, but we lose much of the flavour. Heirloom plants have been passed down though generations in part because they taste good and grow well in smaller gardens. With fewer people growing any of their own food, we are in danger of losing some of the varieties that have been around for centuries.

The good news is that more people are becoming interested in growing some of their own food, even in urban environments. Colette Murphy of Urban Harvest at the Dufferin Grove Farmer’s Market says that some of the easiest plants for a new gardener to start with are beans and peas. The seeds are large and start easily, and they are pretty hardy. One of her favourite varieties is the Berta Talaska pole bean, which can be eaten as a whole green bean when young or the beans can be taken out of the pod and eaten fresh or saved for drying.

Many of the seeds have interesting stories behind them. While I was browsing, a man came in and bought some Cosmonaut Volkov Tomato seeds. They were named after the first Ukrainian Cosmonaut, and are not actually heirloom seeds yet, as to be considered an heirloom they must be fifty years old and these are only forty-nine. Another variety of tomato from the former Soviet Union is named after the American opera singer and activist Paul Robeson, who was popular there because of his political beliefs. You don’t get this sense of history when biting into an industrial-grown commercial tomato.

In addition to the varieties above, I bought sweet basil seeds and breadseed poppies. I will be starting all the seeds this weekend with the exception of the poppies which have to be sown directly into the ground where they grow. I’m looking forward to my first garden from seed, as all of my previous efforts have been transplanted plants.

You can find Colette and Urban Harvest seeds and plants at the Dufferin Grove Farmer’s Market every Thursday from 3:00pm to 7:00pm or on the Urban Harvest web page.