This is the story of how a good tomato can become lost to the seed trade.
We first purchased seed for Arctic Fire in 2010 from the now closed Canadian seed company, Bow Seeds (well, sort of, we’ll explain). In their seed catalogue, Arctic Fire was billed as being part of the ‘Northern-Exposure-Extreme Seed’ series.
We sat on the seeds for a long time, almost 10 years. At that point we were worried the seeds might not germinate, but they did, no problem, and we were rewarded with beautiful brilliant red tomatoes that tasted great, produced early and were compact– ticking off all of our boxes. Unfortunately, in the intervening decade it took us to grow Arctic Fire, Bow Seeds had closed and we couldn’t find any further information about the variety. No vendors were selling Arctic Fire and it wasn’t listed in any seed exchange sites.
Fast forward to 2023, we were still curious about Arctic Fire’s history and went back to the old Bow Seeds catalogues in our collection to see if there were any other details we had missed. And lo and behold there were.
The ‘Northern Exposure-Extreme Seed’ tomatoes had their own small section in the catalog with information about how to purchase seeds. Here’s the part we overlooked. For Arctic Fire and the other tomatoes in the ‘Northern-Exposure-Extreme Seed’ section, customers were instructed to contact the creator of the tomatoes, Marketland Garden, in Bowden, Alberta (pop. 1,200) with their order:
“Request by mail along with cheque, money order or charge card with full information” to Marketland Garden… [address provided] This seed is not available by phone, or in any other location, nor can it be included with other orders from this catalogue.”
Notice how customers were instructed not to send money to Bow Seeds and that Bow Seeds didn’t carry stock of the seeds. We think it is pretty neat that one small seed company was helping an even smaller seed company to sell its seeds without taking a cut of the profits.
It looks like Marketland Garden developed at least 4 tomatoes (we have two more in our collection, a yellow cherry tomato called Arctic Sunspot and Arctic Pot N’ Patio). Next up is to grow these varieties.
When Bow Seeds closed, Arctic Fire and the other tomatoes developed by Marketland Gardens fell out of circulation. This happens a lot as we are finding out and worthy seeds that are carried by only one or two vendors are at risk of becoming lost.
For all of these reasons, we are excited to bring Arctic Fire back to the seed trade. We hope more people will consider growing Arctic Fire and give it a wider distribution.
How to Plant: Start seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Keep moist. When true leaves appear, transplant to a larger container if needed. Transplant outside after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
