Watch this incredibly interesting live interview I did with Seeds from Italy where we’re talking seeds, foods, and Italy! If you’re looking to grow Italian vegetables and herbs in your garden, why not use Italian seeds – straight from Italy?
So excited to share the “behind the scenes” perspective and bring a part of Italy into your home. Whether looking for a place to source herbs, vegetables, fruit or even flowers, you can now have a truly Italian garden! Resources mentioned in the video are below.
Excuse the audio issue in the beginning where I’m a little low on volume, it gets better quickly.
🟢 SEEDS FROM ITALY:
https://www.growitalian.com/
https://www.facebook.com/seedsfromitaly/
https://www.instagram.com/seedsfromitaly/
🟢 ZUCCHINI ITALIAN-STYLE COOKBOOK: https://simpleitaliancooking.ck.page/products/zucchini-cookbook?promo=SEEDS
00:00 Introduction
01:22 About Seeds from Italy
08:21 Trip to Italy
16:08 Shipping locations
18:14 Seed varieties
21:22 Other Italian made products (linens, etc)
25:30 Italian flowers
26:43 Most popular Italian seeds
28:20 Rare Italian seeds to grow
33:10 Seed preservation tips
here we go and we are live all
right well welcome everybody to simple
Italian cooking so excited to have you
here because we’ve got a great interview
today normally we’re doing product
reviews or we’re doing recipes but um
today we are doing something new we are
doing an interview with a great company
called seeds from and I say it but my
name is Liz for those of you who don’t
know so um but we have about a 30 minute
interview and we are going to pack in a
lot of stuff from learning about seeds
from Italy or seeds really from Italy
come on or is it you know a little
gimmicky we’re g to find out and then
we’re going to go talking about uh some
stuff about Italy and food and just a
wide range of things so and a lot of
information and you got to stay till the
end because we’re going to be talking
about some really great discounts that
uh that you can take so um will thank
you so much for being here and you take
a moment and introduce who you are what
you do and just some fun information
about
yourself yeah great well thank you I’m
really excited to do this um my name is
Will nagen guest
I’m transitioning from being the general
manager to the owner of seeds from Italy
it’s a family business though um it’s
been my parents business since 20111 and
I’ve been with the company most of that
time and uh kind of taken over as
they’ve stepped back over the last five
or six years um but soon I will
officially uh purchase the company this
summer is the plan so um that’s in the
works and uh yeah okay so um I guess a
little bit more about me um I’ve got a
couple young kids a three-year-old and a
six-year-old and a wonderful wife um who
also helps out with the business she’s a
professional graphic designer and web
designer um and so so it’s really
helpful to have someone of her caliber
on our small staff to do marketing and
things like that um my kids are really
into gardening we spend a lot of time
outside every morning going and checking
out the garden they like to see when new
seeds pop up and it’s really exciting
for them so we’re hoping to keep that
going um I guess one other thing about
me is that I’m a rock climber I spend a
ton of time uh out climbing all around
the country country and and I’ve
traveled around the world to climb a lot
as well too um and I really like the
seed business because it’s kind of a
seasonal business um we’re like very
busy in the spring and winter uh which
is generally not the best time to climb
anyway because it’s cold or rainy and
then we’re pretty slow in the fall in
the summer which is great times to take
climbing trips so I’ve always been
incentivized to stay with the the family
business because of that kind of freedom
yeah um as for seeds from Italy itself
uh so we are the American importer and
distributor of a really amazing seed
company called Franky centi um Franky
themselves is
241 years old currently they’re they’re
started by uh Mr Franky in 1783 and it
is still in the Franky family I think
they’re like
11th generation or something like that
of this family managing the seed company
um my parents started uh importing the
seeds when they purchased the American
distributor ship from a guy named Bill
McKay who had been doing it for maybe 20
years he Maybe started in the early
1990s um just out of his own interest he
wanted some Italian heirloom varieties
and he couldn’t find them anywhere in
the US so he
found a way to to get in touch with Mr
Franky which was maybe a little bit more
difficult in the ARA you know early
internet era um and he kind of figured
out how to do all the the Nitty Gritty
of importing and getting seeds past the
USDA and things like that um and he did
that for about 20 years and eventually
was ready to retire and so he sold the
business to my parents then and um that
was 2011 is when they bought it and then
we’ve been running it ever
since um yeah I guess that’s kind of the
the basic overview so yeah so what makes
your seed company so different from
because there’s tons of seed companies
that anybody can go to to buy zucchini
or to buy this or that so um I mean you
talk about the distributorship um there
I guess that would be one way
that you know it’s a little unique yeah
definitely um well I’d say the the
biggest unique thing about us is the
seeds that we do import
um so we’re our our business is very
small we’re three employees including
myself and my wife so not a not a very
big business but uh the business that we
actually import from the the producer of
the seeds is one of the most well
renowned uh seed houses in the entire
world and has been for you know
centuries literally so
uh we’ve found that the quality of seed
is really really high um like the
germination rates are excellent across
any varieties and um the the vegetables
that grow tend to be really vigorous and
healthy um and so that’s nice when just
compared with any other seed company but
then uh the actual varieties that we
have access to are really awesome and
interesting um the Italians in
particular known for like really
cherishing their their vegetables um
they do a good job of documenting the
history of them and it seems like nearly
every little town in Italy and kind of
throughout the rest of Europe too it’s
pretty common they have some variety or
vegetable or whatever that that they’re
so proud of and it’s their Regional
vegetable it’s probably been handed down
you know from hand to hand from farmer
to farmer in that area for hundreds if
not thousands of years sometimes and so
uh a lot of that stuff you can’t find in
the US otherwise but we’ve got this
great source that produces amazing
quality seeds and and allows us to have
uh I think we have 650 different
heirloom varieties of vegetables most of
which you can’t find really anywhere
else wow and so those seeds are act
so the seeds are actually sourced from
those local areas
yeah for the most part and and they also
have some you know bigger growing areas
around Italy as well where they you know
produce and more commercial quantities
and stuff like that but yeah yeah and
it’s really cool a lot of the varieties
have this deep tradition that the
Italians are just super proud to
preserve um like uh I guess one that
pops to mind is uh there’s a zucchini
called the Nero Deano which actually is
almost certainly the very first ever
recorded zucchini in in history and and
interestingly it was like 1900 or the
late 1800s that it was first documented
in a cookbook as a new type of vegetable
that you can grow and cook and it’s a
they the The cookbook describes a black
long smooth skinned squash essentially
because it’s in the Squash Family um and
that is and this is a a cookbook from
Milan and today we have the black smooth
skinned zucchini from Milan still so
it’s really cool you can kind of grow a
piece of history and they have tons of
other vegetables that have Back stories
like that too so pretty interesting that
is fasc you got to write a book about
all that for sure abely so you um you
just came back from Italy you you did a
trip and it wasn’t all vacation it was
work uh so tell us a little bit about
that um so yeah my wife and I uh we had
not somehow met Mr Franky the current
uh the current Frankie who’s running the
Franky cementy company um we’d been to
Italy several times and been in the same
city but for whatever reason my wife and
I had just never met him I think we went
out for a date night one night when my
parents went to go meet Mr Franky and
have a dinner with him and uh so anyway
with us taking over the business we
thought it was probably high time to go
actually meet the man and see the
facilities and uh just really kind
of know more about what it was we were
doing um we only had a short time I
think we had seven days total including
travel time because we were leaving our
kids with the grandparents and that was
about all we could justify justify so um
but yeah it was it was great we uh flew
into and out of Milan um and then just
had a few days in and around Bergamo
which is a city about an hour Northeast
of Milan and that’s where Franky’s
headquarters are um so we kind of toured
that area and saw a lot of sites
and did some vacationy things as well
too but also did work a lot so yeah so
one thing that um was really interesting
when I was reading your um one of your
blog posts about the production and and
tell me if I if I’m remembering this
correctly or not but that there are 3
million seed packages that they have 30
million 30 million wow yeah certain
times of the years they uh they said
that’s kind of their maximum storage
capacity right now is they’ll like in
the fall up to the point where they
start shipping out orders to people um
yeah uh that’s about the total that
they’ll get in their warehouse which is
pretty amazing phenomenal um so I’m
going to share my screen here I’m going
to show the
production uh the production area here
so explain what we are looking at so
this is just one wing of their Factory
maybe like a sixth of the total size of
their Factory and this is the seed
packaging um machines and so uh you can
kind of see like some big white boxes
bags kind of on the left hand and middle
of the side of the screen and that’s the
bulk seed is it’s come in from farms um
and it’s since been tested for
germination and U
um uh Purity and things like that uh and
then when they’re ready to pack the
seeds into all these millions of little
seed packets the seed is fed into a
hopper and then there’s kind of like a
little automated assembly line there
that stamps the seeds into smaller
packages and then slips the those
packages into the big picture packets
that go into stores or ship directly to
people so it’s pretty automated process
it used to be um they have pictures up
all over the factory of what it used to
look like a hundred years ago and it was
a a table full of seeds with maybe 20
people hunched over counting out you a
hundred seeds at a time from this table
with a million seeds on it and putting
those each into little bags and stuff
but that’s much faster now I think so
wow yeah I I in the blog post you
mentioned how like the way they sort it
though is like with um it’s like based
on gravity you know and and and that’s
like the same machine that they used
what like a hundred years ago and
they’re still using it today right yeah
there was um there was a like a bean
sorting machine or something that that
Mr Fry showed us it was this huge maybe
eight foot tall giant metal spiral thing
and it had a ton of different kind of
flanges within it and different routes
for the seeds to go and he said you you
dump a big thing of beans in there and
the the way it’s filters them out the
heaviest the biggest beans go to the
bottom and so those are typically the
best beans and the lighter ones Go off
into smaller other areas um and he said
yeah we we still use this it’s still
just the most effective way to get the
heaviest beans out of a bag you know a
thousand pound bag of beans you dump it
in here and you have all the best ones
in about 30 seconds and be much more
challenging to do it any other way so
yeah no kidding that is awesome cool to
see yeah yeah so you are also able to um
eat um in a lot of the local Regional
areas so did you feel like you were
eating the food that’s like getting
delivered to you in the form of seeds
like that’s got to be a pretty
incredible experience yeah absolutely
and we were that was kind of one of our
goals for the trip was to try and notice
if we had eaten specific varieties that
we do import
um because I don’t know it’s interesting
to know you know like uh we always hear
from the Frankies say this is the
parsley that’s grown all over Italy for
example and and I believe them but then
when you go and you’re like oh yeah
that’s the only pars that you can find
is the one that we have the seeds for
that it really is grown all over Italy
um that was just a cool moment of
realization um so yeah we were kind of
there a little bit early for the bulk of
the fresh produce
um we’re kind of in the northern like in
the Foothills in the
mountains um and so it was just early
spring so we’re kind of on the lookout
for some things that would be available
like rikio and um herbs and uh some
greens and uh interesting things like a
grety which I’m not sure if you know
much about a grety but that’s like a
weird so it’s a really it’s a it’s
called salt wart occasionally um and
it’s a kind of like a salty Marsh bush
plant um it has a really it’s hard to
grow because the seed only lasts for
about like four or five months before it
loses five ab ility and it can’t be
grown and so it’s uh you need to like
basically they harvest and then I ship
the seed over here as fast as I can and
we sell it for a little while and then
we take it down and throw away
whatever’s left because the seed’s
already bad by that point um but we got
to try that as cooked by a really good
chef and that was exciting we’ve never
really successfully groaned ourselves
here but it was cool cool to try it as
it it seems like it’s quite common there
so
mhm that is very very cool
um
so I guess in talking about that in when
you go and you look at the Seas that
they have I mean when when you go to
these trips that are overseas and then
you come back are you looking for new
varieties to add into your collection to
make available and by the way um do you
service outside of the US do you ship
these your seeds from Italy
um which we have now clearly established
it’s not a gimmicky thing it’s not a
gimmicky company name you really are
from these are from Italy um you know do
you do you ship outside of the US and
then also are you always looking for new
varieties to bring in sure um well so no
we pretty much only ship within the US I
occasionally send a a package or two to
Canada but um international shipping is
like really expensive these days to to
the point where I think for most people
it doesn’t really make sense
to it’s usually like 20ish dollars to
ship even a small envelope of seeds to
Canada and you know if you’re GNA spend
$5 doll on seeds and $20 on shipping
maybe that’s not worth it for most
people I guess um so mainly just the US
uh distribution I would say um I I think
most other countries uh it’s quite
likely that the seeds just get seized by
the post office or by Customs on the way
anyway so we trying not to I see set
people up for disappointment I guess um
sometimes they insist I had a guy insist
over and over again I’d try and ship him
seeds to Singapore and then they got
seized and he was out of the money as I
kind of told him he might be but oh well
yeah yeah I guess it’s worth the risk
for them yeah exactly um as for new
varieties uh
I wasn’t so much on the lookout while
we’re over there I think um typically
the way that we start to look for new
varieties is if uh if a customer
specifically requests that we find
something or wonders if we have
something available and a lot of times
maybe it’s something I’ve never heard of
and I look it up and it’s a you know a
little regionally available something or
other um and then I can inquire with Mr
Franky whether they have that or are
planning on producing that anytime soon
or anything like that but yeah for the
most part we kind of I would say our
offerings have more or less solidified
over over the 10 years or so that we’ve
had the business um yeah Franky
themselves has about a thousand
varieties and we carry 650 and it seems
like most of the other stuff that we
don’t carry is
either like close enough to something
else that they carry that it probably
wouldn’t be worth you know having two
nearly identical products or something
like that so yeah I remember uh when one
of the first times uh I well I emailed
you I don’t know if you remember but the
original email I sent you like two years
ago was I had these seeds that were from
my father-in-law who had gotten these
seeds from his uh wife’s family in
Sicily and they were Italian green beans
and I’m like a huge fan of like Italian
green beans and so he would always save
the seeds each year and then he gave me
some and so I saved them and this and
that but then I was kind of running low
and then uh so I said I wanted to know
what what are these like what exactly
because I wanted to buy them you know
and have that backup and so I’m like you
guys have to have them so I sent you
like photos of the actual SE se’s and
you wrote back and you’re like yeah
that’s impossible for us to tell you
what because there are literally
probably thousands of types of Italian
green beans and my I have to be honest
my first reaction was like oh come on
you’re exaggerating but if you were
totally right because of what you were
saying earlier about each region and
each family they have their own seeds
that grow and maybe they’ve changed over
time or whatever but they’re you know
and then just over time it comes into
all these different varieties or
different totally yeah yeah and it’s
it’s it’s amazing to see um you almost
get you know like a little feeling of
like the the Waring families in like
classical Italy you know like the medich
family versus the whatever uh one of
them proclaims that their black seated
beans are the best you know this this
particular be with black seeds is the
best Bean in the entire world and then
like 15 miles down the road is another
little enclave and they have the white
seated ones of those beans and you’d
better believe those are the actual best
in the world sounds so Italian yeah
exactly and and so you just see like all
these tiny little uh micro variations
that that some particular region has has
latched on to is what makes their being
special and different um and yeah
there’s there’s probably thousand or
more different Bean varieties from Italy
I would I would guess so yeah that that
was crazy um all right so let’s talk
about now you offer more than just now I
actually have just to show my reader or
my viewers that I am not lying I
actually do
buy SE this is one of the varieties that
I was hoping would be the ones that was
like you know what my father-in-law had
yeah and uh and then of course uh one of
my favorite zucchinis are these you know
and the geneves
so um anyway very very cool but you
offer more than just vegetables um so
what other things do does seeds from
Italy
offer um so we kind of realized that we
had developed the experience of
importing Italian things and so we could
probably try and import some other
Italian things while we were getting
seeds um so we started working with a
few different companies that uh we’ve
got a company that produces really nice
like kitchen Linens um from Tuscany or
they’re from uh
Florence yeah yeah yeah they’re from
Florence and uh they produce all these
beautiful like linen U decorative
kitchen towels and rugs and things like
that um there’s a soap company from
Florence as well uh that we import a lot
of bar soap and like liquid hand soaps
and shower gels and stuff and those are
really beautiful and um fragrant and
make like nice gifts and stuff uh I also
import some kitchen knives and other
small kitchen implements as well um the
the kitchen knives I think are kind of
cool they’re from a company called du
signy which means or syy and means two
swans um and they are in a Northern
Italian city that was the traditional
blad making capital of the Roman Empire
it was where Rome had all their swords
manufactured and so there’s like a 2,000
year old tradition of making knives and
swords in this in the city um and then
we also have a few other like
Farm tool or kind of kitchen Implement
things that help you process your
Harvest like we have a a pada machine
for turning Tomatoes into tomato sauce
and yeah this the garden shears these
are very very good yeah are great hard
hard to break so oh my gosh they are so
sharp I’ve had them for a number of
years and literally just the other week
like I brushed up against it I didn’t
close it I brushed up again it cut my my
wrist and I it’s like I mean it was so
sharp I didn’t even realize I had cut
myself so like these are better than
anything I’ve ever gotten like at Lowe’s
or anything they are awesome totally my
mom actually before we were doing the
seed thing she ran a cut flow uh Farm we
we grew flowers to sell to florists and
stuff and so obviously you’re clipping
flowers all day and she had actually
always used those Clippers long before
we had anything else to do with Italian
product so yeah we can recommend those
very highly yeah so you’ve got the
Linens you’ve got you you were saying
the uh the seed sorder you have um no we
don’t have anything like well kind of we
have like some little tools that can
help you drop one seed at a time or okay
I see what you’re
saying but and then some things like uh
like row cover or uh little tiny like
micro siiz green houses that you can
spread over a road to keep them through
shoulder seasons and things like that
one thing that I have to say for our
viewers out there about your Linens is
these I mean you said they’re from
Florence and stuff but it’s like 100%
linen because like if you go on Amazon
and you type in kitchen Linens or linen
towels for the kitchen it’s going to
make it sound like you’re getting linen
but it’s not it’s like 100% cotton
and it’s not the same thing as that
authentic linen feel
no it’s great and the the other nice
thing about linen is that they don’t uh
keep lint and they don’t shed so if you
want to use them to like wrap dough or
something like that if you use like a
cotton or you know a normal kitchen
towel to leave little particulates all
over your dough in the linen towels you
can wrap up your bread dough in that it
won’t leave it all yucky so yeah it’s
pretty nice yeah that is awesome um all
right so you um you also do do uh in
terms of seeds you have herbs and you
sell uh flowers right flower seeds now
are these flower seeds from Italy too or
these yeah yeah varieties that you might
find in kind of window Planters all over
Italy or um they have a lot of kind of
wild flowers like poppies and things
like that that you see just growing in
the wild in Italy and then a few um like
nice Cut flow varieties as well too so
so if you had to um say suggest what is
the okay a few things one what’s can can
you tell me what’s the most common seeds
that people buy um what and what would
you say is the most rare seed that
people would be like PE because you know
when you Garden you have to experiment
with something new every year right so
like what if somebody was looking to do
something that like I mean I’ve seen
those like zucchinis that look like
snakes you know they’re just like kind
of weird to look you’re like am I really
going to eat this you know like but like
what other things do you have or well
okay so our probably our very best
selling varieties are uh San Marzano
tomato is probably our number one packet
of seed that we sell um the super Marone
beans that you had there is probably the
most most common Bean that we carry it’s
a big broad Roma Bean y
um a few herbs like uh parsley and a
basil like the geneves type basil which
everyone’s familiar with we sell a ton
of that um and
then yeah those are probably those are
probably like the standout top sellers I
would say there’s also another tomato
the red pear tomato that’s really famous
and we sell a ton of those as well too
oh wow I don’t think I’ve heard of that
is that a meaty is that like the yes
yeah so it’s like a pretty big like
softball size but kind of pear-shaped so
wider at the bottom and narrower at the
top um it has kind of the the ripples in
it that you see with a lot of air Loom
tomato varieties okay and it’s it’s
really nice because it’s kind of a
multi-purpose it has a really thin skin
and uh not a ton of seeds so it’s nice
for making sauces with but it’s big and
median is like really nice slicing
tomato as well too so I can kind of do
dual Duty in your garden if you only
have room for a couple yeah yeah and
then the most weird yeah so well the one
you were talking about this the the
snake like zucchini is actually called
Serpent of Sicily so they think it’s
snake like as well um and yeah that’s a
cool one you see it particularly in
southern Italy it’s quite commonly found
um it it’s like a really aggressive
Viner and it’ll grow really quite tall
I’ve I’ve heard people say like it grew
up into my tree and I’ve got zucchini
hanging out of my tree now oh my gosh
that is crazy yeah and it it’s cool
they’ll they’ll get huge if you let them
the the the squash themselves will get
five six feet long um and you’ll see
them hanging out of trees or curled them
stuff like that um but if you pick them
when they’re like maybe a foot or so
long they actually have a a nice texture
and taste that’s similar to
zucchini and yeah those are an
interesting one for sure they’re
actually not technically a zucchini
they’re in the different family of
squash and they are like the typical
squash bugs that that usually wreck most
squash and zucchini crops in the US uh
they don’t like this type so they kind
of just leave them alone so okay I’m
definitely getting some of
yeah it’s a it’s a good one to try it’s
called a a trombetta I believe is like
the specific okay tight squash that it
is so serpents from Sicily is much
easier to remember yeah much more fun
I’m gonna go serpents from
sisily that’s and then that AG grety
seed I was talking about with a really
short viability is another yeah pretty
rare and hard to find thing um and I
think probably we started importing it
maybe five or six years ago and I don’t
think it was available otherwise before
that
um in the US I mean at least and uh
We’ve even found that we have to ship
that over separately we can’t have it
come uh on the um ocean shipment with
the rest of our seeds because it takes
too long and and too variable conditions
and the the seeds are just so delicate
that they can’t survive that so we have
to have those air freighted over
separately and wow still sometimes there
might just be a bad germination year
where none of it comes up so it’s it’s
definitely more of
a experimental type crop and maybe not
one to like bet the whole Farm on in I
would say so yeah that is really that is
so fascinating to me um all right so now
we are actually today is May 1st so
we’re getting into spring um
what should people be growing now um or
start to grow soon where it’s not too
late so what types of of seeds are good
for growing now um so at this point
you’re kind of growing for the summer
season there’s there’s not many things
that you could put in the ground right
now that you would be able to get a
harvest out of before it starts to get
warmer for a lot of things um I would
say like radishes and carrots and quick
growing green like arugula or lettuce
mixes um those would all be really good
things to start right now and they’ll
probably do pretty well but the greens
will eventually get their season cut
short by the summer at this point um
probably pretty soon depending on where
in the country you’re at if if you’re
over the threat of frost it’s probably
time to get going with uh
beans um
cucumbers peas uh
you probably want to set out transplants
for tomatoes or peppers if you started
those indoors several months ago those
are probably ready to go out um or if
you buy those from a garden center or
something like that um squash you could
probably set out as well too uh so yeah
for the most part it’s kind of setting
out things that you’ve transplanted or
direct seeding the last few summer
things like beans um beans need to have
soil temperatures of about 70° before
they germinate so if you put them into
the ground before it’s too warm they
will just rot in the ground and they
won’t they won’t pop so okay sometimes
it’s nice to wait on those a little bit
or or do multiple plantings every couple
of weeks and maybe the first one or two
won’t be right on time and the the third
one will be perfectly timed or something
like that so yeah yeah well you know
that I still have like a few of those
seeds from my uh father-in-law so um I
have no idea if they’re even able to
germinate which leads me into another
question actually um I’m gonna try to
get them to germinate I mean they’re
like over 10 years old um so they’re
like they’re really old but I’m like
deter gonna try
it yeah so what are some of the best
preservation tips that you can offer
people for preserving their seeds I mean
I actually okay so this is really cool
uh we I got a cookbook that was um from
my uh my in-laws when they moved U my
mother-in-law gave me it’s an old Copic
it’s from the 60s but they were probably
using it around the 90s early 90s
because inside I found a dried up tomato
seed and there were like three of them
and they grow they used to grow tomatoes
that were straight from Sicily they
seeds and then they saved the seeds and
kept them going and so I knew that these
seeds had to have been from you know the
Tomato variety that was from Sicily and
sure enough I mean they had to have been
in that book for at least 15 years and
so um and it grew I mean it actually
produced tomatoes and stuff I it was
like I was so ecstatic it was pretty
awesome so I don’t know if that’s you
know totally rare for that to happen but
you know storing them storing them in a
book is probably not the best way to
preserve them but so what TP do you have
yeah totally well no that is definitely
unusual I’d say most seeds of like
probably the longest storing seeds um
are tomatoes are one of them um and they
maybe will last a safe bed is like six
years as a maximum um but eventually the
seed just gets so dried out that kind of
the the spark of life that is in that
seed is just withered and there’s
there’s no chance um
seed viability kind of depends on the
variety a lot like uh onion seeds
typically only lasts one year whereas um
a lot of herb seeds will maybe last five
or six years or something like that same
with tomatoes and peppers um beans can
typically last a long time as well too
uh but in general the kind of best
practice for storing them um the general
rule of thumb is that you want really
stable conditions whatever whatever it’s
going to be but ideally you want for a
mix of the humidity and the temperature
that adds up to 100 so for example 50%
humidity in 50 degrees would be a ideal
storage condition for seeds
um for us we’ve got like a a our
warehouse we keep temperature controlled
and so we keep it at 50 and 50 more or
less or 60 and 40 or or whatever is a
little bit easiest for the air
conditioning to handle at the moment um
but the the main thing is that you don’t
want it to Wi wildly fluctuate um a lot
of like a common mistake that people
make is they put their seeds in like a
ball jar or a mason jar which is a great
thing to do and then they put them in
the freezer which would be kind of good
because of the temperature but the thing
with the freezer freezer is that it
Cycles on and off and so um you get a
lot of humidity changes within the
freezer that’s why you get like freezer
burned meat and things like that um
essentially it just does the same thing
to your seeds it can make them
condensate inside the package and then
freeze and dry out and condensate again
and it it just kind of kills the seeds
pretty quickly um so I usually recommend
to people that if they have like a dry
basement that stays cool and dark um and
doesn’t really change temperature
humidity that much I would save your
seeds in like a seal them in a glass jar
and then save them somewhere in the dark
in the in the you know environment like
that okay those are great tips yeah but
if maybe if you had a deep freeze type
thing that you never open or very rarely
open that might be another place to uh
store seeds for long term as well too
wow okay all right that’s good um all
right so um we are past 30 minutes so
let’s go ahead and talk about
um let’s talk about um you have some
discounts going on that people can take
advantage of yeah we’ve just got a
little Mother’s Day sale going on right
now um with some of those other products
from Italy like soaps and linens and uh
kitchen rugs and things like that and
they’re all 15% off um yeah we still
have a lot of really nice designs of the
Linens the the Linens in particular I
always think are like one of the best
host or Hostess gifts you can give um
it’s they’re like $20 a piece so they’re
not crazy expensive but they are
beautiful and will last for years and
years and years we have had several that
have been like done a a full Tour of
Duty as like wiping up for my two young
children for five or six years now and
getting washed three times a week and um
you can still see the design on it and
the towels having unraveled or anything
like that so I I think that’s a great
gift something and you can kind of
personalize you know that choose one
that you think reminds you of your
mother or whatever that she might like
so I love that I love that um so where
can uh people find you if they want to
learn more sure so our uh website is
www.go italian. comom um our business
name is seeds from Italy but they’re the
the UK distributor already kind of has a
very similar website name so we decided
to spread it out a little bit so that we
weren’t having people email us about not
being able to ship to the UK and him
getting why can’t you ship to the US
questions so grow italian. comom and
then we also have um uh Instagram and
Facebook accounts under seeds from Italy
okay all right well that’s great so I
want to encourage everybody to
definitely uh check them out also since
we were talking about vegetables I got
to do a little plug here for my own
personal little ebook uh that I have uh
specializing in zucchini in fact the
cover of the ebook are the zucchinis
that I grew from seeds from Italy so
yeah I took the photo I was growing them
I think it was like I don’t know a year
or two ago when I made the book and I
had that photo and I was like I let me
just grab a bunch of you know zucchinis
and I and they were the ones that I grew
on my back deck from from you guys so
it’s pretty cool um but I’m offering a
discount for that so anybody who’s
watching this can put in uh the um the
I’ll have the link but the coupon code
is seeds and and uh I’m going to put all
the links Below in the description uh
for everybody uh so that they can find
out more about seeds from Italy Mother’s
Day is coming up take advantage of that
that’s a great idea I love
that you can you can never have too many
recipes for zucchini as well if you if
your zucchini is doing well you’ll have
so much zucchini you need to figure out
something to do with it so isn’t that
the truth zucchini is like the go-to
that and tomatoes I mean it’s like come
on I mean that and garlic well let’s
grow gr
grow well that is awesome well well I
just want to thank you so much for uh
taking the time to share about uh you
your family your company um and what
people can benefit from that and to
really literally bring a piece of Italy
into your home I mean you can’t get any
closer than that so that is just awesome
you guys definitely have 100% my support
well thank you yeah I appreciated this
Liz it was really nice to
chat you’re welcome
exed we will do this again next year so
and uh get some people so they can get
some seeds to start growing in the in
the uh in the spring and and get things
moving there too and I want to hear
about other varieties that that you are
growing so um absolutely fascinating and
thank you so much again for for being
here so um I’m going to and I don’t see
any questions um but I do see some
people watching if is anybody watching
right now that has any questions um feel
free to um pop them in the chat there um
even though we’re kind of wrapping up
but we’re a little flexible here so um
and I’m trying to let me just look at my
thing here and see um so we’ve got grow
italian. comom you got a newsletter I’m
actually on your newsletter so we got a
plug so people sign up for their
newsletter that is definitely uh
something that you have to do because
they’re they’re always talking about
what they have coming and coming and
what you need to do
we do have a paper copy of our catalog
as well too so if you ever uh would like
a paper copy sent to you with all the
pretty pictures
and yeah things like that H you can sign
up for one of those on our website okay
awesome great to know great to know all
right will well I will be uh speaking
with you later and thank you so much
again thank you everybody for watching
yeah thank you