Common Sense Seeds

Home
Canada
Calgary, AB
Common Sense Seeds

Family run Canadian seed company. Short season, open-pollinated tomato seeds (and a few other veggies). Unique Tomato Seeds.

Grown in the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Alberta, Canada. Heirloom and Hardy Tomato, Veggie, Herbs & Flowers. Family run Canadian seed company
Heirloom and hardy seeds
Unique tomato seeds grown in Alberta, Canada

12/01/2025

This summer was a challenging one for beans. Mainly because we had some impolite voles doing a lot of sampling. They managed to completely destroy several varieties of beans we had planted. But we do have a few varieties to offer – including a few from the Paula Dubeski Bean Collection!

First, the Paula Dubeski Bean Collection.

Paula is a long-time seed saver in Lacombe, Alberta who has kindly shared her bean collection with us! We are so grateful to Paula. Over the years, Paula has sought out hardy, early season varieties and then trialed and stewarded these beans in her Zone 3b garden. Paula, along with her growing partner Amy, have helped make these early season beans even better through their efforts to adapt these varieties to the challenges of her Zone 3b gardens. Over time we will continue to add more of her beans to our lineup.

We have also shared Paula’s collection with the Calgary Seed Library and their members did a grow out of 3 bean varieties this summer.

Pictured are 4 of the bean varieties from Paula’s collection we have in our 2026 catalogue.

King of the Early (bush bean) – mottled, burgundy and tan bean-- is a fantastic bean for short growing seasons. The large, plumb beans dry down before the first frost, and the yields are high.

Maine Sunset (bush bean) -- ivory-white and maroon beans-- each bean has a different splotch of maroon making each bean uniquely beautiful.

White Cloud Cannellini (bush bean) -- a lovely large white bean (kidney shaped) that is great for short seasons. Paula notes this Cannellini variety is earlier and more dependable than other cannellini varieties.

Tiger’s Eye (bush bean) -- the colour of the dry beans is stunning – a deep tan to mustard base with purple to maroon swirls. The beans do resemble tiger’s eye stones.

The late bean breeder extraordinaire Robert Lobitz is quoted as saying: "Beans are a poor man's jewels" -- indeed, these beans will remind you of beautiful gems. And we will add -- you are rich in so many ways beyond money when you have beans planted in your backyard!

Happy Planting ❤️

11/12/2025

The Fragrant Garden. Part III. As winter approaches, our summer garden is now a thing of the past – but the fragrant garden is still a sharp memory! Here is the stunning Dianthus isensis we grew this summer.

This flower makes you appreciate that the translation of Dianthus is ‘Flower of the Gods’.

Scientific name: Dianthus isensis

English name: Dancing Geisha

Japanese name: Ise Dianthus, Satsuma Dianthus, Osaka Dianthus, Gosho Dianthus

Flower colours: pink, white, red, purple

Fragrance: mild

Height: 30 cm to 50 cm + drooping petals can be 10+ cm long!

This heirloom Dianthus was developed in the Edo period in Japan (1603 to 1868). Information from the Encyclopedia of Horticultural Plants (Japanese edition, edited by Tsukamoto Yutaro; info via www.nio.sakura.ne.jp) states it was created by a samurai from the Kishu region who lived in Matsusaka.

Despite its otherworldly appearance, Dianthus isensis is easy to start from seed and easy to take care of. It blooms the first year from seed and is perennial down to Zone 5.

Fingers crossed we see you next year beautiful Dianthus isensis in our Zone 4 garden!

11/03/2025

Our new 2026 seed varieties are now available on our website! 🌱🌷This was a great growing season, and we have some really special new varieties. A few are pictured here:

Picture 1 ‘Flavour Steak’ Tomato🍅A rare and beautiful, great-tasting tomato – it is meaty and juicy. And of course, has a great name!

Picture 2 Calendula 🌼 A classic garden flower that is easy to grow from seed. Calendula is a wonderful ornamental plant, but also a pollinator and medicinal plant.

Picture 3 ‘Pink Popsocks’ 🌸A lovely cosmos that is easy to grow from seed and adds a burst of pink to the garden.

Please check out our website www.commonsenseseeds.ca for our new seeds!

Thank you from Tania, Kevin and Alex!

Happy (Thinking About) Gardening😊

10/31/2025

Better luck next year😊🍅 Although this was a very good year for tomatoes, each year some varieties don’t make the cut. Here are 3 great tomatoes that missed the mark for various reasons – but we will try again!

Photo 1: Santa Catalina – We trialed Santa Catalina this summer. We were fortunate to get a small sample of seeds from GRIN and ended up planting 4 seedlings. This one started off so great with healthy seedlings and vigorous, productive plants. But unfortunately, only 1 of 4 plants were true to type. We saved seeds from that one and will do a bigger grow out next summer. This is a rare Gleckers’ variety from the 1950s created by the master Argentinian tomato breeder Dr. Abelardo Piovano, so it is worth the extra effort.

Photo 2: Arctic Sunspot – This one was true to type – but we only had one seed germinate (from the original seed pack that was 10+ years old)! So, we only had one plant. We saved seeds from our one plant and will do a grow out in summer 2026. This fall we will have seed for Arctic Fire and Arctic Pot N’ Patio – two other varieties in the Arctic/’Northern Exposure Extreme’ Seed series.

Photo 3: Rebel Starfighter Prime – Such a beautiful tomato – but tricky to start. It was slow to germinate and then plants stalled at the seedling stage. However, once passed the seedling stage the plants grew well and were productive (its wispy leaves gave the plants a weeping willow look). We will try again. This summer we also grew Marsha’s Starfighter Beefsteak (also from the ‘Rebel Starfighter’ breeding line) and that one did great – so it will be in the lineup.

10/27/2025

The Fragrant Garden – Part II. Sweet Peas! ❤️Although I am more of veggie person 🍅 than a flower person 🌸– sweet peas now have a permanent place in our garden. I resisted sweet peas for a long time – probably because they are not edible – but they wrestled their way into the garden and claimed precious tomato space with their enchanting beauty and astonishing fragrance.

And now I am actively creating more space for fragrant plants after reading, ‘The Fragrant Garden’, by Louise Beebe Wilder (1932). She writes:

“Why do garden makers of to-day so seldom deliberately plan for fragrance? Undoubtedly gardens of early times were sweeter than ours. The green enclosures of Elizabethan days evidently overflowed with fragrant flowers and the little beds in which they were confined were neatly edged with some sweet-leaved plant—Thyme, Germander, Lavender, Rosemary, cut to a formal line. The yellowed pages of ancient works on gardening seem to give off the scents of the beloved old favourites— Gilliflower, Stock, Sweet Rocket, Wallflower, white Violet. Fragrance, by the wise old gardeners of those days, was valued as much as if not more than other attributes.”

It is a whole new experience to be in the garden when it’s a scented garden...

Two of our favourite sweet peas:

Pictures 1 & 2 - King’s Ransom - King’s Ransom has a divine fragrance and looks stunning. The best description I have found for its unique colour is ‘smoky watermelon’.

Pictures 3 & 4 - Mollie Rilstone - Mollie holds her own next to King’s Ransom and has an intoxicating strong floral fragrance and beautiful cream-coloured flowers edged with pink. Mesmerizing!

Both will be in our 2026 seed catalogue - which will be up on the website early November.

10/23/2025

The Fragrant Garden – Part I. 🌸🌺 Not only are we obsessed with tomatoes, now add Garden Pinks and Sweet Peas (upcoming post) to the list. After reading Louise Beehe Wilder’s lovely book ‘The Fragrant Garden: A Book about Sweet Scented Flowers and Leaves’ (first published in 1932), I knew we needed to create a fragrant garden. Over the past 2 years we have been working towards that goal.

The garden is already my happy place, and the fragrant flowers kick things up a notch.

Picture 1 – Rainbow Loveliness - Beautiful, ethereal flowers of pink, lavender, carmine and white that seem to float in the air. The floral scent is intoxicating – uplifting and grounding at the same time-- reminiscent of sweet peas and jasmine.

Picture 2 – Cheddar Pinks - So named because its native habitat are the limestone cliffs of the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, England. Lovely rose-pink sweetly fragrant flowers and narrow, grass-like green foliage.

Picture 3 – Sweetness - A lovely fragrant cottage pink. A compact plant (4 to 6 inches) with small flowers ranging from light pink to dark pink and white flowers.

Picture 4 – Sooty – A Sweet William type of Dianthus with stunning deep maroon, almost black flowers. Sooty’s foliage is also stunning – deep green when the plants are young and best described as “metallic mahogany” when the plants mature. Flowers have a subtle fragrance.

These Garden Pinks are must-haves in our garden:

-Easy to start from seed
-Low maintenance
-Great for smaller spaces
-Beautiful flowers (from seed the first year, except for Sooty)
-Perennial (Zone 3 and up)

We will have a limited amount of seed for each in the 2026 lineup -- which is coming soon!

10/14/2025

Happy Tomato Tuesday! ❤️🍅Miel du Mexique (Mexican Honey) had been on our ‘must-grow’ list for a while because of the rave reviews it gets. But if never seemed to make it into the garden – until summer 2025.

This summer we were also in year 2 of growing out 2 other varieties of red cherry tomatoes that have received rave reviews – Sugar Gloss and Sugar Rush (both are usually referred to as F1 or ‘hybrids’ – we wanted to see). Both of these varieties are put on pedestals for their sweetness. For example, one seed company said they trial over 50 different varieties of cherry tomatoes each year and described Sugar Rush as the sweetest cherry tomato they have ever encountered. And Sugar Gloss is praised for its exceptional sweetness and Brix rating of 12% (indicating high sweetness; for comparison, a 12% Brix is higher than Sungold).

So, we thought we had sweetness covered with these two– but found out differently after tasting Miel du Mexique.

Miel du Mexique is even sweeter than Sugar Gloss and Sugar Rush— with a more complex sweet tangy taste—and we have stopped our grow outs. There is no point – Miel du Mexique is such an excellent tasting cherry tomato. It is crunchy, juicy and sweet.

Plus, it does really well in low-irrigation conditions (it is described as drought-tolerant) and the plants are beautifully healthy with deep green leaves all summer, right up until the first frost.

The tall plants (6 ft) have very good production from mid-season onwards. The bright red cherry tomatoes weigh about 15 g, are resistant to cracking and hang in clusters of 12 to 15 fruits.

Seeds for Miel du Mexique will be available in our 2026 seed catalogue which will be available soon!

10/07/2025

Happy Tomato Tuesday! ❤️🍅 Here is Varto a lovely and hardy Estonian 🇪🇪 tomato created at the Jõgeva Sordiaretuse Instituut (Jõgeva Plant Breeding Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Estonia).

The Institute has a long history going back to 1920 when it was established at Jõgeva Manor (see last picture) – a site chosen for its cold conditions -- which allowed breeders to create varieties adapted to short seasons.

Varto is an early, compact variety – that did well in medium and large-size pots in one of our little greenhouses (it is described as a windowsill or greenhouse tomato). It is also noted for being shade tolerant. It has brilliant red fruit that weigh 50g to 100g. And very good taste – a good sweetness with a bit of tang.

We will have seeds for Varto later this fall!

09/22/2025

I love growing nutrient dense foods. Especially when they are easy. And this summer, Mrs B’s Garden Huckleberry grew all by herself. I didn’t plant Mrs B’s, she self-seeded from last year’s harvest. Thanks to Trent White for helping me id the seedlings.

Mrs B’s Garden Huckleberry isn’t actually a huckleberry; Mrs B’s is a variety of Solanum scabrum – one of the edible black nightshades (in the same family as tomatoes and ground cherries). Native to Africa, Solanum scabrum is now widely cultivated around the world.

The edible black nightshades are starting to get attention as potential superfoods. Research on Solanum nigrum (another species of edible black nightshade) found that the dark coloured berries have anthocyanin levels similar to blueberries. Other studies have found that Solanum scabrum (using its old name S. melanocerasum) has vitamin C levels that are higher than lemons and limes and just under the vitamin C level of oranges (comparing vitamin C content/100 grams)

Taste-wise Mrs B’s aren’t as sweet as blueberries, but they are sweet enough. And Mrs B's is a different strain than the common wonderberry or garden huckleberry, and isn't bitter (other strains can apparently be bitter).

In fact, Mrs B's full name is -- 'Mrs B's Non-Bitter Garden Huckleberry' (according to the 1999 Garden Seed Inventory). To me they have a faint vanilla ice cream taste🍦😊

Plants are about 2 ft tall and productive.

We eat the berries raw (when ‘dull black’/’matte black’ in colour) and freeze them for smoothies and crumbles.

Mrs B’s was introduced to the seed trade by Seeds Blum (Iowa) in the 1980s, but are now hard to find. Our seedstock came from a Seed Savers Exchange member in Montana.

09/16/2025

This has been a great summer for tomatoes 🍅and here is one of our favourites❤️. Year after year 'Aritzkuren Black' shines in our garden and this summer was no exception.

This stunning tomato comes from the village of Aritzkuren in the Pyrenees mountains of the Basque region of Spain (the village has an intriguing history, included are photos of the village and terrain, more info on the website).

'Aritzkren Black' has glorious, ribbed fruit with tones of pink, brown, burgundy and black. The fruits are medium to large in size (150 g to 250 g) and have very good, sweet flavour. The 3 ft plants are impressive – so sturdy and robust. And very productive.

If you have wanted to try a tomato from Spain (or a warmer part of the world) but were worried about how it would do in a shorter season garden, this is a good one to try. Normally in Calgary we have dry conditions, gusty winds off the Rockies and struggle with cool, alpine nights (we’re at 1000 m altitude) -- although this year was a wet year in Calgary – even with all of this weather variability – nothing seems to faze this tomato.

And it's just fun to have a Basque tomato growing in your garden!🍅

Address

Calgary, AB

Website

http://www.commonsenseseeds.ca/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Common Sense Seeds posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Common Sense Seeds:

Shortcuts

Featured

Butterfield Acres
254077 Rocky Ridge Road

Want your business to be the top-listed Pet Store/pet Service in Calgary?