“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
–Henry David Thoreau
tomato seeds
I’ve been meaning to give away a few of the tomato and pepper seeds I have saved this year, and now is a good time to do it while folks are still in the planning stages of their 2017 gardens. Due to custom requirements and postage costs, I will limit this giveaway to folks in the U.S. or Canada. I don’t have huge amounts of these seeds available, but I am happy to share them with my readers while the supply lasts.
First up is the Champagne Cherry tomato. These little pale yellow gems are sweet, almost like tomato candy, and the size is inbetween a currant tomato and a regular cherry tomato. The strong indeterminate vines have regular shaped leaves, and my prolific plants produced right up until frost zapped them. I got my original seeds from Secret Seed Cartel, which is one of the few places I found that currently list this seed for sale. Tatiana’s TOMATOBase says it was first offered in the 2010 Seed Savers Yearbook.
Champagne Cherry tomatoes
Another of my favorite small fruited open-pollinated tomatoes is Mexico Midget. It’s a red cherry type that’ s a bit bigger than Champagne but still smaller (½-¾ inch) than the typical cherry tomato. The rambling indeterminate vines are loaded with the small, sweet, dark red tomatoes that grow on trusses. I got my original seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange, where it won their 2014 Tomato Tasting event. It’s always a winner here at Happy Acres too!
Mexico Midget tomatoes on the vine
For peppers, I have seeds for three of my favorite C. baccatum varieties. Aji Angelo pepper is probably the most useful and most-used pepper that I grow. It’s mildly hot, red when ripe, and produced in profusion on plants that can reach three feet tall in my garden. It’s also easily grown in containers, which is a good way for those gardeners in colder climates to get a jump on the season and produce ripe peppers before the first frosts come. In addition to using it fresh, I use this pepper to make hot sauce, and dry it for powder. The peppers are also tasty after they are smoked and dried. I got my seeds from Michelle (From Seed to Table) in a seed swap several years ago, and I can’t remember where she got her seeds originally. These are seeds I saved in 2014, and should be viable for a couple more years to come.
Aji Angelo pepper
Aji Angelo peppers
Aji Golden is another baccatum pepper that gets a lot of use around here. Like Aji Angelo, it also has mildly hot peppers, but as the name implies they are a golden yellow in color when ripe. It too is great for fresh use as well as turning into hot sauce and powder. I’ve also used it to make a pepper jam, and it makes a nice companion to Aji Angelo as you can see in the second photo below. I got my original seeds from Dust Bowl Seeds.
Aji Golden peppers
Aji Angelo and Aji Golden peppers
The third baccatum pepper is called Malawi Piquante. It’s a small cherry type baccatum pepper with mild heat that can get up to one inch in diameter. It is similar to the peppers used to make the pricey peppadew peppers, and I use mine mostly for pickling where they wind up on salads, sandwiches and pizza. The plants can get quite large in my garden, as you can see in the photo of me in the pepper patch back in August. This pepper is also a good candidate for growing in containers. I got my original seed from Refining Fire Chiles.
Malawi Piquante peppers
I also have extra seeds for a couple of squash that I didn’t save myself. Seeds from Italy usually gives giant packs of seed, and I almost never use all of them before they lose their viability. Striata d’Italia is a striped o/p cocozelle type zucchini I’ve been growing for many years now.
Striata d’Italia zucchini
And Tromba d’Albenga is a tromboncino type C. moschata squash with a long curved neck that is usually used at the immature stage. They can get up to three feet in length, though they are probably better in the one to two foot size range. The long neck is all flesh, and the fruits have less moisture than a zucchini which makes them useful in a lot of different dishes in the kitchen. The vines do ramble, and I usually let mine grow up my garden fencing.
Tromboncino with eggplant
Here’s a recap of the seeds I have to share:
- Champagne Cherry tomato
- Mexico Midget cherry tomato
- Aji Angelo pepper
- Aji Golden pepper
- Malawi Piquante pepper
- Striata d’Italia squash
- Tromba d’Albenga squash
If you are interested in any of these seeds, just leave a comment here indicating your interest. I will get back to you via email, so please use an email address you check regularly. Or you can email me directly if you prefer. Either way, I will be happy to send them out to you, while supplies last. And while I’m here let me take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy holiday season!
UPDATE: The seed giveaway is now closed. I will try and start sending seeds out soon.
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