Seeds of Diversity Canada

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Seeds of Diversity Canada

People Protecting the People's Seeds The diversity of seed varieties has been decreasing steadily for decades.

Food crop biodiversity is our single most crucial tool to adapt our food systems to changes –improving the odds that they can withstand threats like disease, extreme weather and pests. Our seed library and grower networks conserve many rare varieties not carried by commercial seed companies.

08/14/2026

Last week, the team gathered, like we always do, at rare Springbank Gardens for our annual garlic harvest. This year, 78 varieties were grown and harvested in the plot generously provided by The rare Charitable Research Reserve (thank you, rare!), including a few new additions*.

Each variety is planted with 12 cloves in the fall, arranged alphabetically and meticulously to ensure the varieties don’t get mixed up as they grow. So, this means we had about 936 garlic bulbs last week to pull from the ground - minus a few that didn’t make it.

Swipe to the last pic to see a friend spotted amongst the plants!

* Did you know there are over 100 varieties of garlic suitable for growing in Canada? 🧄 🧄🧄

07/23/2026

We know from yesterday’s post that many herbs belong to the mint family, producing seeds that are generally simple to save by leaving the flowers to turn brown and dry, then separating the seeds from the pod or head. But not all herbs in our gardens are part of the mint family - many are also in the carrot family.

✨ Here’s a bit more about the carrot family ✨

Carrot relatives have leaves that often lose their scent and flavour when dried, because the flavour is in the living leaf tissue. With a few exceptions, they are best used fresh, or for their tasty seeds. The flowers always have the familiar "umbrella" shape of this family, called umbels. Examples include parsley, dill, fennel, anise, and caraway.

To save seeds from any of these plants, wait for the umbels to mature and turn fully brown and dry (sound familiar?). The seeds should then be simple to rub off with your hands or using a screen.

A note on cross-pollination: As essentially wild plants, virtually all herbs are cross-pollinated by insects. However, seed savers should not worry about this unless they are growing particular named varieties. Otherwise, your garden-variety dill is probably the same as your neighbour's.

07/22/2026

Last week, we mentioned that your herbs may be almost ready to offer seeds. Most herbs produce easy-to-save seeds, so you can supply your own for future growing. This is especially valuable if you’ve come to love a hard-to-find variety, or are wanting to save money, be self-sufficient, or share seeds with others (something we highly recommend doing!).

✨ Here’s a bit more about the mint family ✨

You might be surprised at how many herbs are related to mint: basil, bee balm, hyssop, lavender, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, thyme, just to name a few!

These are all categorized in the same family because of the shapes of their flowers, and their seeds ripen in similar ways. The flowers are pretty and edible, but if you don't eat them they eventually turn brown and papery. If you want seeds, wait until they are dry, then strip or crush them with your fingers or using a small sieve, revealing tiny seeds inside.

You usually have to make a choice between harvesting leaves, flowers, or seeds. The reason is that the leaves of mint-family herbs usually have the best flavour before flowers form, and if you want to harvest flowers then you obviously can't also get seeds from those flowers.

That's why it's best to grow several plants. You can harvest delicious leaves or flowers from some, and let other plants ripen seeds.

07/17/2026

This is the time of the season when fruits and vegetables from the garden become really abundant. The first delicious cherry tomatoes, the first few zucchinis, and that wonderful first bite of your favourite, sweet melon. Before long, we'll have tomatoes on every windowsill, and neighbours will be trying to give away their extra zucchini!

It's also the time to start collecting seeds. If you miss picking a few green beans or peas, let the pods mature all the way until they give you free seeds. Instead of deadheading all your flowers, let a few ripen to brown seed heads so you can plant them again next year. And check your herbs - they'll start to give you easy-to-save seeds very soon.

07/13/2026

Last week, some of the team got together to w**d the garlic collection (80 varieties this year!). The scapes are just right for eating, but we're leaving half of them to grow bulbils. They'll be available in August so you can grow these varieties too.

Our National Garlic Collection is, as it has been for many years now, hosted at The rare Charitable Research Reserve. What a beautiful place to gather and spend time together as a team.

Learn more about our garlic at seeds.ca/garlic

07/09/2026

You might have wondered, at one point or another, what Seeds of Diversity does during the summer months. Seeds have all been sent out and are happily planted in our members’ gardens; Seedy Saturdays are long over (for now, they’ll be here again before we know it!); and the

The seed work never really ends - staff are spending time every week continuing to sort, accession, germ test, and take beautiful photos of our collection.

Here are just a few varieties we’ve been working with these past weeks. Do you recognize any of them?

06/19/2026

Yesterday, we shared with you the top 16 most common vegetable varieties in Canada this year. And now… what about the most rare varieties?

Well, it turns out that we can't even come close to listing them all here. 6500+ out of the 10,500+ varieties in the Seed Finder are only available from one seed company each!*

The 88 varieties here are just a small glimpse of this extensive list.

This is the very reason why Seeds of Diversity exists. Almost two thirds of all commercially available vegetable varieties are only offered from single sources, each from just one company out of 132. Let that sink in. Those are the varieties that seed savers should grow and exchange, because they can disappear forever so easily.

So, what can you do about it? Take part in the Save One Rare Variety Challenge, each and every year! Head to the Seed Finder (seeds.ca/seedfinder) and pick a variety available from just one seed company. Grow it out, save some seeds, and share far and wide, to get those seeds into the hands of more people.

* Remember yesterday we shared that we're still cleaning up the list, so exact numbers are TBD for now. We’ll share when we’re finished going through it with a fine tooth comb this summer/fall :)

06/18/2026

Our Canadian Seed Finder (www.seeds.ca/seedfinder) shows all the garden vegetable seeds offered from 132 Canadian seed companies in 2026. This year, there are more than 10,500 varieties available* - that’s a lot of selection!

At Seeds of Diversity we use the Seed Finder to learn which seed varieties are easy to find, and which we need to rescue!

Seeds of Diversity's member seed growers plant hundreds of different kinds of seeds every year, and save them to preserve the varieties - so gardeners can keep growing rare heirlooms next year, and for many more years after that. But it doesn't make sense for us to save varieties that are easy to buy.

Here are the top 16 least-rare vegetable varieties, in order of how many seed companies sell them. We know for sure that there's no need for seed savers to rescue these ones!

Spaghetti squash
Cucamelon
Black Cherry tomato
Red Russian kale
Chives
French Breakfast radish
Cherry Belle radish
Purple Top White Globe turnip
San Marzano tomato
Yellow Pear tomato
Provider bean
Waltham Butternut squash
Sugar Baby watermelon
Scarlet Runner bean
Black Krim tomato
Buttercrunch lettuce

Next up, we’ll tell you all about the least common vegetable varieties in Canada - stay tuned!

* We're still doing some cleanup of duplicates, alternate names, and spelling differences, so the exact number is TBD. It's a big job to scour through thousands upon thousands of variety names!

06/10/2026

The Youth Seed Stewardship project wrapped up back in March, and we’re excited to share more about the seed library created through it, what the season looked like for our youth leaders, and where the project is headed next.

https://seeds.ca/d/?t=503ae52800004945

Seed Stewardship is part of our Youth in Food Systems program, which you can see in action on its website and social media. YFS recently celebrated its 5th anniversary and it continues to grow more meaningful and vibrant every year!

Youth in Food Systems
www.youthinfoodsystems.ca

06/08/2026

A few weeks ago, we challenged you to guess what this unusual decoration is hanging on the wall in Seeds of Diversity's little office . Here's the answer!

✨ Seedy School Projects of a Century Ago ✨

During the early 20th century, up until about the 1950s, it was common throughout Canada and the U.S. for schoolchildren to collect and learn about seeds in biology and agriculture classes.

Sometimes, a class would be assigned to collect seeds from w**ds and wildflowers. In rural areas, a collection of agricultural seeds (wheat, rye, flax, oilseeds, etc) might be the assignment. In every case, the students were to find local plants or sources of seeds, collect them in little glass vials, label them with common and/or scientific names, and learn about the plants along the way.

Some of these projects simply displayed the glass seed vials in their original boxes, but others like the one mounted on the wall in our office, involved the creation of a display board. The project could include woodworking, creative design, mathematics, and aspects of many other skills over and above collecting and labelling the seeds.

We don't know how many of these classroom seed collections still exist, but we're sure that they were very common 80-100 years ago.

Learn more: https://seeds.ca/d/?t=d7e2961c00004955

Address

1/12 Dupont Street West
Waterloo, ON
N2J2W6

Telephone

226-600-7782

Website

http://www.seeds.ca/

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