Our 2025 Canadian Seed Finder
Did you know there are 120 garden seed companies in Canada (that we know of) that sell 9636 different kinds of vegetable seeds? That's a lot, and we know that because we made an index of all their catalogs!
Every year, our Canadian Seed Catalog Index is updated to record the diversity and availability of vegetable varieties across Canada. You can use it to find your favourite varieties, or you can use it to find varieties that are sold in your region.
Check out the complete list at https://seeds.ca/sources or use our Canadian Seed Finder tool to search by region or for certified organic seeds.
Every year, there are more sources of some varieties, and every year there are fewer sources of some varieties. That's why we update the index every year: it's a crucial tool in our process of determining which varieties need to be actively conserved. When we recruit seed-grower volunteers to help rejuvenate rare varieties, we use the seed catalogue index to help identify the varieties that are in the greatest need of rescuing.
You can use the seed index for conservation too!
You can make a difference by saving seeds of a really rare variety, and offering it to other seed savers. We call it "Save One Rare Variety". Here's how:
- Check the Canadian Seed Finder for a seed variety that's interesting to you, but is only sold by one company. Remember, tomatoes, beans, peas, and lettuce are good plants for beginning seed savers because they self-pollinate.
- Buy those seeds to support the company that's helping preserve them, grow them, and save more.
- Offer your saved seeds in our Member Seed Exchange next year.
Just with these simple steps, you can double the number of places where those seeds are available to gardeners. That helps ensure that the variety will be preserved for another year.
If everyone saved just one rare variety, there might not be any rare varieties anymore!
The Most (and Least) Rare Vegetable Seeds in Canada
Our Canadian Seed Finder (www.seeds.ca/seedfinder) shows all the garden vegetable seeds offered from 120 Canadian seed companies in 2025. This year, there are a whopping 9636 varieties available - that’s a lot of selection!
You can use it to find your favourite seeds (we encourage you to give it a try!), but at Seeds of Diversity we use it for another reason… to learn which seed varieties are easy to find, and which we need to rescue!
Going to Seed Offers Landrace Seeds in Canada
One of the easiest and most effective ways to adapt food crops to specific, local growing conditions is to start with a genetic mix and save seeds from the plants that thrive best in those conditions. This is the theory behind "landrace gardening", where growers breed mixes of plants rather than uniform varieties, and save seeds that capture a wide assortment of genetic traits rather than just those present in a conventional cultivar.
Going to Seed is a growing organization of landrace gardeners and seed savers who select seeds from many places and growers, combine them to create diverse mixtures, and re-grow those mixtures to reveal the traits that best suit each grower's local growing conditions.
A Home Run with Baseball Cabbages
Growing cabbage for seed has challenges. Firstly, cabbage is biennial; the flowering occurs in the second year and the plants need to be stored and protected from hard frosts over winter. Secondly, cabbage is outcrossing, requiring insects for pollination. And thirdly, if you grow more than one cabbage cultivar, you need to isolate them from each other during flowering by tenting or distance to avoid interbreeding. This makes cabbage a demanding crop
How to Do a Germination Test
If you're like me you probably have a shelf somewhere with lots of packages of old seeds; some just a year old, but some older than that, and you're starting to wonder whether they're worth planting next spring or whether they should be replaced. Seed companies and seed banks test their seeds for germination all the time (at least they should) and you can too.
In this issue
The Most (and Least) Rare Vegetable Seeds in Canada
Going to Seed Offers Landrace Seeds in Canada
A Home Run with Baseball Cabbages
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