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Helen Chesnut's Garden Notes: William Dam Seeds some of the best

When I was newly settled back on Vancouver Island and just beginning to shape my current garden, I made the acquaintance of Andrea and Nick, who introduced me to William Dam Seeds.
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This container planting of Pluto basil was just starting to produce flowers on the last day of August, after a summer of fresh, all-green growth.

When I was newly settled back on Vancouver Island and just beginning to shape my current garden, I made the acquaintance of Andrea and Nick, who introduced me to William Dam Seeds.

Like the Dam family, my new friends had emigrated from Holland following the war. They, like many immigrants at the time, longed to grow the European vegetable varieties they had relished all their lives. That desire gave birth to the Dam family seed business, now in its 70th year.

A staple in Andrea and Nick’s vast vegetable garden was Dutch Brown beans, still listed in the catalogue. Those rows of bean plants blessed their large family with a year’s supply of dry beans, with some extras to share with friends like me. I still have Andrea’s recipe for bean soup.

Andrea also introduced me to “greenlof” (sugarloaf) chicory, an interesting and easily grown leafy green vegetable that looks like a cross between romaine lettuce and Belgian endive. Seeded directly into the garden in May, the heads are ready to use in the fall.

Sugarloaf lends tart notes to salads. Andrea sometimes lightly steamed the sliced heads to serve with a nutmeg-flavoured cream sauce. This is a beautiful and delicious easily grown vegetable that is too little known.

The William Dam Seeds catalogue remains popular with many home gardeners for its reasonable prices and its broad selection of flowers, herbs, and vegetables that include European varieties.

An outstanding example of a superior European-bred variety is Siderno, a tomato I’ve grown on my patio for several years now. Every summer, the plants produce the earliest and best-tasting tomatoes of all the small-fruiting varieties I grow.

Bred in Germany for the container market, Siderno yields golf-ball-sized tomatoes on plants 45 centimetres high. A tomato cage stuck into the pot right after transplanting supports the plants nicely.

William Dam Seeds lists Pluto, the best dwarf, small-leaved basil I’ve grown so far. Bred in Britain, Pluto has earned a Royal Horticultural Society Award of Garden Merit. Its compact size (20 cm) makes it ideal for growing indoors as well. Pluto is the ideal year-round, container-grown basil. In a windowbox style planter, Pluto makes a neat, aromatic little green “hedge.” I intermingle Pluto plantings with container-grown dwarf tomatoes on patio shelving in the summer.

The catalogue notes varieties that have earned awards of excellence from both All-America Selections and Fleuroselect. Among its violas is a European Fleuroselect Gold Medal winner called Delft Blue — a viola I grow almost every year for its exquisite deep-blue markings on white.

For gardener-cooks fond of the Middle eastern spice za’atar, a new listing among the William Dam herbs is a Zaatar oregano (Origanum syriacum), a herb used for centuries in the Mediterranean for Za’atar blends. The 40-centimetre plants have fuzzy grey-green leaves and white flowers. The herb is recommended for use in salads and olive-oil infusions, and on pizza.

The catalogue’s introductory note is always worth reading. This year, William A. Dam notes life’s increasingly rapid pace and the huge shift to online consumerism. “The gift of eating is a constant reminder to step back and enjoy. The essence of life is still food and water.”

May we all count ourselves as blessed with the gift of gardening, for food and beauty.

Garden events

Orchid meeting. The Victoria Orchid Society will meet on Monday, Feb. 25, from 7 to 10 p.m. in Gordon Head United Church Hall, 4201 Tyndall Ave. Mitch Nickel will explain how to identify and exploit microclimates in your growing areas. Guests are welcome.

View Royal meeting. The View Royal Garden Club will meet on Wednesday, Feb. 27, at 7:30 p.m. in Wheeley Hall, 500 Admirals Rd. in Esquimalt. Shannon Berch, an adjunct professor from UBC, will speak about growing truffles on Vancouver Island. The evening will also include a judged mini show and a sales table with plants and garden items. Visitors and new members are welcome. Further information at 250-727-0076.

HCP workshops. The Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich, is offering the following workshops. To register, call 250-479-6162.

• Mason Bees, Sunday, March 3, 1 to 3 p.m. Learn everything about housing mason bees at home. HCP members $20, others $25.

• The Backyard Orchard, Saturdays, March 2 and 9, 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Learn about selecting, caring for and propagating fruit and nut trees as well as kiwi, fig, blueberry and raspberry. Members $90, others $110.