Common Sense Seeds

09/11/2026

Thinking about what the price of tomatoes will be later this fall/winter, I am motivated to go back into the garden a 3rd & 4th time to collect even the smallest green tomatoes. Even though every time I go back, I am sure I have got them all!🍅❤️

09/03/2026

A Tomato Tour!🍅 After a slow start in Calgary, we have had some heat and ripening is happening. Pictures were taken on Sept 2, 2026 (going clockwise).

Picture 1 | Ixtepec Highlands: A staple in our garden. Small pink beefsteak tomatoes with a 'flavour burst'. I am snacking on one as I write this post -- when you bite into it, you first taste mild sweetness, but then there is this burst of spicy! It is also a very productive and hardy tomato. Sometimes the seedlings look rather straggly but still plant them. They bounce back once in the ground – similar to Ojo de venato. It might be their root system doesn’t like containers or perhaps they need more heat than our spring can offer.

Picture 2, Top Right | Fiaschetto di Torre Guaceto: (new this year) A super-productive sweet red cherry-type tomato that is on the “Slow Food Presidium” of Italy. It is historically used to make passata (uncooked tomato sauce) in the Brindisi area of Italy, and also for fresh eating. It is low-growing (2ft or so) and hardy.

Picture 3, Bottom Right | Torre Canne Regina: (new this year) I am loving this longkeeper from the Puglia area of Italy for its productivity and small plant size (18" or so). It would make a great container variety. We will pick Regina unripe and the tomatoes should store until January. We will have several new amazing longkeepers this year and I will do another post on them soon.

08/25/2026

Happy Tomato Tuesday! ❤️🍅 This makes me so happy – ripe tomatoes. Once again, Arctic Fire is the first large tomato in our garden to ripen. Although this year, it is about 25 days later than last year.

In 2025, I posted on July 31 about Arctic Fire taking ‘first prize’.

Two factors likely explain this difference:

• (1) This year, we had a cold and wet spring in Calgary (Zone 4) and everything seems to be later.

• (2) In 2026, I sowed seeds for Arctic Fire on April 29. This is pretty late for me. In 2025, I sowed seeds for Arctic Fire on April 5. This year, most of my tomato seeds were planted on April 8, but a few varieties were sown on April 21, April 29 and one on May 5.

So. Arctic Fire had to do a bit of catch-up this year. But at least things are moving in the right direction!

08/19/2026

Mid-August Garden Update – A tale of green tomatoes! I wish I had something more interesting to post – but this year the tomatoes are taking their sweet time to ripen 🍅. A few varieties have started to ripen – and I will do another post on those -- but the cold, wet spring we had in Calgary (Zone 4) has pushed back ripening for most of my tomatoes.

Here is a sneak peak of a few of our new varieties – albeit still green!

Top left | Banadoura Jabaliya (Mountain Tomato): A sturdy, compact variety with beautiful, ribbed tomatoes collected in Anjar, Lebanon in 1941 by the USDA.

Top right | Tomato Soup Remix: This is my tentative name for this interesting tomato whose parentage includes Campbell Soup 128 x the ‘famous’ tomato Philippine No 2 (a tomato with the ‘high crimson gene’ that produced the High Crimson line of tomatoes developed by Dr T.O. Graham in Ontario). This cross was made in Ontario in the late 1950s to early 1960s to F5. It is a small, low-growing productive tomato with purple stems.

Bottom left | Melfort Tomato: A Canadian prairie-bred tomato (1970s) that will eventually have orange-red beefsteak tomatoes on a small plant.

Bottom right | Pocomoke: A compact, productive plant with clusters of small round tomatoes that may have been part of the (historic) canning industry in Pocomoke, Maryland.

I will have more details of their stories later!

07/26/2026

Celebrating an important Canadian plant breeder! Happy 81st Birthday to Stanley Zubrowski (July 26, 2026) – a Master Canadian Plant Breeder from Prairie River, Saskatchewan. 🍅🌹🇨🇦

You might not know that Stanley has been quietly breeding flowers (the stunning ‘Joe Zary’ clematis and ‘Louis Riel’ rose) and tomatoes for over forty years in Prairie River. You might be growing one of his plants in your garden!

We've been fortunate to get to know Stanley over the past few years and recently interviewed him about his plant breeding work. How neat is that! He told us about the inspiration behind his famous clematis varieties, roses and tomatoes.

In honour of his 81st birthday, we have put the interview together with pictures of his breeding work. You can read our interview with Stanley on our website. Here is the link: https://commonsenseseeds.ca/musings/musings-seed-story-stanley-zubrowski/

Pictured are 3 of his clematis varieties (pics by Stanley) and 1 of his tomatoes (pic by us):

• Top Left | (purple) Clematis koreana hybrid (one of his works in progress)
• Top Right | (pink) Clematis macropetala (another work in progress)
• Bottom Left | (pink) Clematis ‘Dr. F.L. Skinner’ (Stanley’s cultivar released in 1988)
• Bottom Right | Tomato Yellow Fireworks (sweet, yellow, early globe-shaped tomatoes)

We hope more people get to know and grow Stanley’s varieties.

Happy Birthday Stanley!

06/25/2026

We’d like to tell you about the bean growing collaboration between Common Sense Seeds & the Calgary Seed Library. 🌱❤️ Common Sense Seeds was kindly gifted over 40 different varieties of heirloom beans from long-time seed saver Paula Dubeski of Lacombe, Alberta. Over the years, Paula has sought out hardy, early season varieties and then trialed and stewarded those beans in her Zone 3b garden. Paula has made these hardy varieties even better with her selection!

We shared some of Paula’s beans with the Calgary Seed Library and this summer the Calgary Seed Library is growing out 3 varieties (pictured and described below).

• Brown beans | Mennonite K Triple bush bean | A family heirloom that has been grown in Manitoba for over 100 years by the Keeler family. Paula originally received the beans from Heritage Harvest Seed who received them directly from the Keeler family. From Paula’s notes: ‘an extremely productive heirloom”. It is early to mature and used as a dry bean.

• Black beans | Beurre de Rocquencourt bush bean | A lovely yellow (wax) bean named after the town of Rocquencourt in France. The deep black beans are mesmerizing. An early and productive bean that does well in short season climates.

• White beans | Pfaelzer Juni bush bean | Another rare heirloom. This variety has large flat green pods with great taste. The flat pods are used as snap beans and Paula’s notes indicate that the dry white beans can be used as soup beans. She also notes that this is a prolific bean!

Thank you to everyone at the Calgary Seed Library who is growing, saving and sharing Paula’s beans!

Happy Planting everyone! 🌱❤️💚

06/17/2026

This is such good information! Our cool weather in Calgary is not helping the tomato situation here either. Tania

This is why I HIGHLY recommend not planting your hot weather plants like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant among others until roughly two weeks after last frost which is June 8th this year. If you have a heated greenhouse that is a different story.

When temperatures drop below 10°C, the plant's photosynthesis slows significantly, resulting in much smaller plants and delayed harvests.

Exposure to chilling temperatures (below 10°C to 13°C) directly before or during flowering negatively impacts pollen viability. This causes poor pollination, a low rate of successful fruit set, and increases the likelihood of misshapen (catfaced) fruits.

Below 12°C to 14°C, the plant’s roots struggle to uptake essential nutrients like phosphorus, which can cause a purple discoloration in seedlings and leaves. Cold-induced stress also hinders the plant's ability to utilize calcium, leading to disorders like blossom end rot in early developing fruits.

Personally I will be taking advantage of the nice daytime temps to harden them off really well until planting time.

06/09/2026

The white stuff in our garden is hail – such are the gardening challenges in June in Calgary (Zone 4 & 1045m/ 3428 ft above sea level).

A few days before the hail we had temperatures reach 31C (87F) (unusual for the end of May) and a few days after the hail we were under a ‘Special Weather Advisory’ which advised: “Conditions are favourable for the development of funnel clouds early this afternoon through this evening…. This weak rotation is normally not a danger near the ground. However, there is a chance that this rotation could intensify and become a weak landspout tornado.” (It didn’t happen)

I have been playing catch up with the weather all spring!

Over the years we have developed a number of strategies to try to mitigate hail damage, with row covers, cloches, and small greenhouses, but this year’s weather is proving to be challenging.

I hope everyone else is having better spring gardening conditions.🍅🌱

04/28/2026

Happy Tomato Tuesday🍅❤️! Today I’d like to introduce a few Canadian tomatoes 🇨🇦 🍅that have been bred (or stewarded) for short growing seasons.

Pictured is one of our favourites -- Johnny Jumpup (the tomato🍅not the flower🌹).
• Bred at the Provincial Horticultural Station in Brooks, Alberta (1950s). (See photo from a 1950s agricultural publication)
• Compact (16-18") & makes a great container variety.
• Productive and covered with small tomatoes.
• Very good flavour. One of its parents is Burbank; a classic, great tasting tomato.
• Early and produces all summer

It’s not too late to start Johnny – in our Zone 4 gardens, we can start Johnny from seed into early May.

Other Canadian tomatoes we can start from seed into May and still have a harvest (not pictured):
• Arctic Pot N’Patio
• Porter’s Early Brookpact
• Cherry Gold
• Ross Red Salad Tomato
• House
• Siberian (honourary mention b/c it was selected by Canadian tomato breeder T.O. Graham (1960s) and then grown on Baffin Island in the Arctic❄️)

Happy Planting!

04/26/2026

If you are looking for a fun gardening related thing to do today (Sun April 26) come see us at the Cochrane Gardening Expo! We will have our seeds and other vendors have plants and other wonderful things for your garden 🍅🌹🌷🪴

Living Sustainably . Event | COCHRANE & AREA GARDENING EXPO| Sunday, April 26 | 11am – 3pm

Get excited about digging in the dirt! Whether you’re an experienced gardener or the owner of untested garden tools this event will help you kick-off your gardening season with plants, seeds, accessories and tips for gardening in this (often challenging) zone!

VENDORS will get you ready for Spring planting with seeds, plants & accessories | EXPERIENCED LOCAL GARDENERS – chat & learn | SEED EXCHANGE TABLE operated by Cochrane & District Horticultural Society - Cochrane's Local Garden Club – bring your extra seeds & buy from the collection - 'pay what you can' with proceeds donated to a local charity.

The Gardening Expo offers three SPEAKER PRESENTATIONS:
11: 30 am: POLLINATORS AND SUSTAINABLE GARDENS | Sydney Worthy, Alberta Native Bee Council
12:30 pm: SOIL HEATH - THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL GARDENING | Sheryl Normandeau, Author
1:30 pm: REGENERATIVE YARD CARE | Kurt Stenberg, Arborist – cochranetreecare

Location: Cochrane Lions Club Event Centre ( 109 Fifth Avenue, Cochrane). Entry is free of charge.

Event information & VENDOR LIST: https://cochraneenvironment.org/cochrane-area-gardening.../

Invite your friends and neighbours to join you at the Gardening Expo!