We had gotten settled in the fairgrounds and so we decided to take a quick trip into Petaluma to see the town, at least part of it. I knew from reading some literature, that there was an heirloom seed store in town. I love gardening, I miss it, and I love looking at seed packages, the Burpee catalogs, and the Gardener Supply catalogs every spring. I'm a frustrated gardener as I couldn't grow anything for the last 7 years at my little homestead in Fremont, IN. The soil was compact as cement. If anybody had seen me trying to use my bulb hole digger by jumping up and down on it to try and get a hole to put some bulbs in, they would have laughed their heads off. I'm sure I looked pretty silly trying to make holes for some bulbs by my fence. I did manage to get some ornamental grasses growing and some perennials in by the pole barn in all that time, but no vegetable garden or flowers in the main part of the yard. I had some chives and parsley growing in container pots in the RV for awhile last year, but they petered out. So, with spring here, and the gardener in me stirring as I read about the seed store, I knew it was on the to-do list. (Uh-oh! says Eldo. Does this mean more potted plants and dirt in the motorhome?) We'll see, honey...
As we pulled into the center of historic Petaluma, which looked very cool with kitschy boutiques and brightly painted storefronts, I saw the seed store in an old bank building on the corner. "STOP THE CAR! THERE IT IS!" I yelled (well, excitedly stated would be the better choice of words here) to my guy, Eldy, and he let me out right at the store front door while he tried to find a parking space. Oh, boy! A cool, old bank building built in 1926 houses the neatest seed store you can imagine--a seed store that features 99% (?) heirloom, difficult to find rare seeds for veggies and flowers....oo-o-o-o-h, so cool! And so here is what I saw......rows and rows of boxes of seeds of old, old varieties of every possible garden vegetable you could think of...I counted over 85 varieties of melons....cool garden tools, gardening quilts hanging on the walls, handmade soaps and gifts and really neat varieties of heirloom tomato seeds along with all the rest of the 1287 varieties of heirloom seeds....all housed in a beautiful bank lobby/hall with cool architecture. I bought some heirloom tomato seeds for my brother-in-law who's an amazing gardener and a great cook!
I thought the flower seeds packaging was beautiful! (I'm such a sucker for visual "eye candy"...)
I saw varieties of tomatoes I've seen in fancy restaurants, but most here I've never seen....
Browsing this store made me want to go home and make a fresh salad and maybe grow some stuff to make a fresh salad! (It's a good thing it wasn't a cheese store, says E.) It was just a really neat store to explore today...there are many more unique places to visit in Petaluma..we'll probably go another day...tomorrow is San Francisco and the FERRY! Woo-hoo!
We love heirloom tomatoes. We are on the hunt for some brandywine starts right now. We are going to put out a couple of tomato plants, just for fun,and maybe we will get enough for the table. I use to make my own spagetti suace, chili sauce, catsup, salsa, everything you can think of that has a tomato in it. I do miss all of that. Thanks for sharing this post. It brought back a lot of memories... :)
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