The Cottage Gardener
Helping home gardeners and market growers grow beautiful and productive gardens since 1996. Our customers tell us they love our seeds because of their high germination rates, generous quantities and fair prices! And when you plant Cottage Gardener seeds, you are helping to preserve genetic bio-diversity and save old, tried-and-true varieties from being lost forever.
About The Cottage Gardener
The Cottage Gardener Heirloom Seedhouse is owned and operated by Mary and Dan Brittain. Our daughter, Rachel, helps out at some of our seed shows, but a gardener she is not. So if you see her at a show, note that she’s probably wearing a name tag that says "I’m friendly, but I know nothing. Ask my Mom." Our son, Adam, also an urbanite, has just discovered the delight of growing his own food so there’s hope for the passion to be passed on.
Our property, located just west of Port Hope, Ontario is a lovely, secluded 10 acres surrounded by evergreens. This provides us with a unique micro-climate especially conducive to growing and saving seed. We have always grown organically and formalized this several years ago by becoming Certified Organic producers and processors. We feel it’s important, especially with a mail order business like a seedhouse, for customers to know that when you say you’re organic, you can verify that.
We are dedicated to searching out traditional species, varieties and cultivars that grew in gardens of old and re-introducing them to you. Browse through this site and we believe that, like us, you will fall in love with the plants that have all but disappeared from modern nurseries and gardens - flowers with delicate beauty and intoxicating fragrance, vegetables with intense flavour and colourful character and herbs grown for thousands of years for medicinal, culinary and household uses.
Best of all, heirloom plants have stories to tell - stories that relate to their uses, their discovery or the "magical" powers ascribed to them. We hope you enjoy the stories told here and that you decide to add a little "history" to your garden!