subject: Nickys Nursery Offers Seeds, Plant Seeds, Garden Games For The Whole Family! [print this page] There is a new awareness in today's modern world by a growing number of people that we have gotten to far away from our agrarian roots - there is a certain something that grocery store fruits and vegetables are lacking, and science is now backing that up. Admittedly, it is nice to be able to buy oranges or lettuce in the dead of winter. It is a luxury that should not be given up.
But there is also something to be said about produce which is grown right in your own garden (or in my case, my back yard and front yard). There is something viscerally satisfying about walking around after you get off work, and picking a squash and a tomato or two and some green beans and then coming in and cooking them in a variety of ways - and the amazing thing is, if you take care in the seeds you buy it is not just your imagination and work that makes these vegetables taste better; this is held up by scientific evidence.
A perfect example is the tomato. There is a gene which causes a tomato to ripen all at once instead of from the bottom up, and the goal is twofold - to make the fruit firmer for transport and to ensure that the entire tomato is a nice uniform red from top to bottom.
That solid ripening gene has been bred into commercial tomatoes since the sixties or so - but when you grow what is known as 'heirloom tomatoes', you will notice that they ripen from the bottom and that when most of the tomato is ripe it may still have green or reddish green 'shoulders' - that part of the tomato that humps up and then down into the stem.
Now, here is the interesting thing - when you taste the two side by side, the one which does not ripen uniformly from top to bottom also does not have nearly as much tomato flavor as the heirloom varieties; they may not ripen as prettily, and there may not be quite as much production of the fruit, but the flavor is noticeably more intense and robust.
Of course, it makes perfect sense for the large commercial farmers and grocery stores - they want the prettiest fruits and veggies on their shelves that will last the longest, and flavor is something which simply by the wayside. That is perhaps the best thing about your small house garden; if you buy proper seeds, your fruits and veggies will have a noticeably better taste even though they might not be as pretty as what you buy in the stores. One of the greatest places to buy vegetable seeds that fall outside this 'mega-farm' variety is Nicky's Nursery. They have over 950 vegetable seeds of all sorts, and most of them fall in the non-commercial heirloom variety, though they also do carry some commercial seed strains.
They also offer a great variety of backyard garden games that will get the whole family outdoors and exercising - when you need good quality seeds at a great price, go to Nickys Nursery seeds and Garden Games for all your backyard game and vegetable and fruit seeds - they also have a great selection of flowers, grasses, bushes and trees!
