Seed Sorceress

Meet the Felton gardener behind a beloved brand

Does your pulse quicken when you pick up a packet of seeds? If so, you might be a gardener at heart.

Even if you’ve never so much as put a kernel of corn in the dirt, you cannot help but be drawn to the colorful watercolor illustrations on the packets of Renee’s Garden seeds.

They’re displayed where organic food is sold and at independent garden shops and nurseries nationwide. For Renee Shepherd, finding easy-to-grow varieties for kitchen gardeners that produce tasteful, nourishing meals has been her life’s mission for nearly 40 years. “We want home gardeners to be successful, so we trial things constantly,” she says.

At the trial gardens in the foothills of Santa Cruz and at her ½-acre organic test plot in Felton, where she has lived since 1979, everything is grown carefully and evaluated. “Our trial garden manager and staff test as many as 280 varieties yearly in long raised beds. We have always used organic products and practices,” she says.

Weekend visits to her grandmother’s house instilled a love of gardening.

Because the company markets its seeds nationally, chosen varieties are also trialed in Vermont to make sure they will grow in cold weather climates.

Shepherd hails from Euclid, Ohio, where weekend visits to her grandmother’s house instilled a love of gardening. She came to UC Santa Cruz to pursue a PhD in intellectual history and then spent a few years as an instructor in the Environmental Studies Department. Her decision to stay in Santa Cruz was easy: “I love Santa Cruz, and another big motivator is I could finally have a horse of my own here!” Her property includes an irrigation pond and having access to adequate water was an important reason she could develop the first trial garden.

Renee’s Garden is her second bloom, as it were. The first was a catalog company called Shepherd’s Seeds, created in 1985 and initially run from her home. The company featured 60 different kinds of seeds in packets distinguished by sepia line art. She moved on to establish Renee’s Garden in 1998, with its eye-catching watercolor renderings of the magic awaiting within.

San Francisco botanical artist Mimi Osborne has been creating Shepherd’s seed packet illustrations from the beginning, starting from multiple photos of each variety taken in the trial garden. Osborne first completes a detailed pencil sketch from the photos before creating the watercolor portrait.

“Seeds come from all over the world,” says Shepherd, careful to note she is not a seed grower, but a seed sourcer. “We bring in seeds from the U.S., France, the Netherlands, Italy, India, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Mexico, Thailand, Japan…all over. I have two criteria: they have to be productive and in the case of vegetables, great tasting. Flowers have to be easy to grow and beautiful.”

During the pandemic, all packet seed companies saw a 100% increase in sales. While it’s no longer at that level, Shepherd says, “Once you catch the gardening bug, you never look back.”

After the consolidation of garden centers and buyouts by the big box stores in the 1990s and the recession of 2008-2009, she’s encouraged by a renaissance of small garden centers, including feed and seed stores. “It’s like the return of independent bookstores.”

Renee’s Garden is a cornucopia of choice. The company offers 26 different varieties of sweet peas and 18 different zinnias, six different regional Italian basils, eight types of kale and a huge variety of lettuces.

But, she notes that a big variety does not make her a “big” company. For reference, Renee’s Garden sells between 7 and 10 million packets yearly; Burpee sells 20 million.

One of her best sellers, and a personal favorite, is the “cut and come again” mesclun baby leaf mixes. “I first saw and tasted mixed baby greens from weekly markets in France about 25 or 30 years ago, and was the first to introduce seed mixes for baby leaf blends in the U.S.”

She encourages people to grow their own favorite vegetables and herbs, as well as flowers to support a healthy ecosystem. “Growing your own home garden, even a container garden, can be helpful in sustaining a wide range of pollinators. Plus, there’s the joy and pleasure in growing your own food,” she adds.

Regarding growing tomatoes in our fog-influenced climate zone, Shepherd says sturdy varieties such as deep orange sungold cherry tomatoes and stupice red round tomatoes are good choices for near the coast. “Stay away from big fruited heirlooms that were developed for hot humid climates because they just won’t cooperate in cool, foggy, coastal summer weather.”

To help combat hunger and promote gardening in a hands-on way, Renee’s Garden donates seed packets to a wide variety of groups, including community gardens, school garden programs and prison gardens. ”Locally, we donate to Cabrillo College, Life- Labs, UCSC and many nonprofits, plus senior living facilities, many of which are starting to have small gardens for their residents to work in and enjoy,” says Shepherd.

What to do with all that produce? Take inspiration from one of her three cookbooks, prompted by customer questions like, how do I use radicchio or cook Romano beans. Recipes From A Kitchen Garden, More Recipes From A Kitchen Garden and The Renee’s Garden Cookbook are all organized by vegetable, so you can quickly find recipes for squash, broccoli, basil and so forth.

The website is filled with tips, like when to pick basil to make it last longer, how to make pesto (she uses oregano and parsley as well as basil), and gardening videos.

Lack of space shouldn’t limit your imagination. Renee’s Garden specializes in containers plants. “We have a French zucchini that does not scroll or vine and all the fruit grows in the center. We have patio cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and dwarf kale and chard that grow perfectly in a pot. We have short sweet peas and compact nasturtiums and zinnias that all do well in containers,” she says.

Ideal container tomatoes include stupice and Tasmanian chocolate, a cross between brandywine and green zebra with mahogany and orange stripes.

“Planting seeds is an ecumenical act,” Shepherd says. “Our job is making sure our customers are successful, and that their food is nutritious, delicious and fun. Go out and pick your dinner. And remember, there should be no politics around dinner.”