Chess Street Seed Shop
Some of the seed packets Jackie Inserra, owner of Chess Street Seed Shop, has accumulated are shown. The micro-nursery grows and sells rare seed and uncommon plants.
Jackie Inserra, owner of Chess Street Seed Shop, with her daughter, Sophia, in the basement of their Monongahela home, where Inserra transplants and grows a variety of rare seeds and uncommon plants.
Among the exotic trees that Jackie Inserra grows is a Eureka lemon tree. The lemons are pink inside.
A finger lime tree that Inserra grows. Inserra is owner of Chess Street Seed Shop in Monongahela.
Sophia Inserra enjoys helping her mother, Jackie, grow rare and uncommon plants. Jackie Inserra owns Chess Street Seed Shop.
Jackie Inserra sorts through a catalog of rare seeds and uncommon plants she has cultivated at her Chess Street Seed Shop. Inserra has established relationships with gardening groups across the country and internationally as she has grown her business.
Pardon the pun, but Jackie Inserra has a growing obsession with seeds.
The Monongahela resident owns Chess Street Seed Shop, a micro-nursery that grows and sells rare seeds and uncommon plants.
“I love buying seeds, I love trading with people,” said Inserra, waving a hand in the direction of wooden boxes that contain hundreds of seed packets of unusual flowers, herbs and fruits.”It’s just so overwhelming because you just want to grow everything, but you don’t know what to buy first. That’s where the addiction comes in. I want to buy everything.”
Over the past two years, Inserra has established relationships with fellow plant collectors and horticultural businesses and organizations that share her passion for unusual species and varieties.
She also participates in seed exchanges, where gardeners often offer varieties of plants not typically found in catalogs.
For Inserra, the history connected to many seeds is fascinating.
“A lot of seeds have a story behind them, which is cool.”
One of her favorites is a packet of seeds from an heirloom tomato called 3945. The tomato has been re-grown every year since the late Joe Roberts, a World War II veteran, picked the original up while walking across a battlefield. Years later, a friend suggested Roberts name the tomato 3945 to signify the beginning and the end of the war.
She’s obtained soybeans from North Korea through the United States Department of Agriculture, peppers from Ukraine, basil from Afghanistan and Iran, and hybridized hibiscus from a back yard grower in Florida.
“Joining gardening groups makes it easy,” said Inserra. “There is an online community, and several back yard growers who have the coolest, craziest varieties.”
Inserra refers to mutant peppers as “my babies,” and runs down to her basement throughout the day to check on seedlings as they take root under grow lights.
She’s passionate, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about plants of all sorts.
Example: as she rubbed the leaves of a finger lime tree, she rattled off a description, saying, “It’s Australian. When they grow, they look like pickles, and when you slice them, and you squeeze them, they come out in little balls, like caviar.”
Next to the lime tree sat a Eureka lemon tree. The variegated lemons are pink inside.
Inserra’s helper and “partner in crime” is her five-year-old daughter, Sophia, who helps Inserra with all aspects of her small business – from sorting packets to seed-starting to transplanting.
Inserra’s husband, John Foster, converted a space in the basement into a seed-growing area.
“He did it because he got tired of all of the plants on the kitchen table,” Inserra joked.
Inserra, a bartender and waitress at Angelo’s II in Monongahela, has always been interested in gardening and farming.
“My mom’s side of the family were homesteaders, and they had an apple orchard. I love tropical flowers, and when we moved into our house, I thought maybe we’d plant a couple of things. We got so into it, and it just went from there,” said Inserra.
The upcoming weeks are a busy season for Inserra, who is preparing to start seedlings indoors and then plant them outside in the spring.
Inserra said some of her favorite plants to grow are micro dwarf varieties, tomatoes and super hot peppers.
Inserra was motivated to launch her own micro-nursery after a friend of hers started a successful small business outside of Seattle.
“When I worked in restaurants downtown (Pittsburgh), you’d see the Farm to Table movement. This is the Seed to Table movement, and I like it. You can save your own seeds, plant them, grow what you want, eat what you want, share with (seed collectors) what you want. I think that’s kind of neat.”
She also enjoys the knowledge that seeds she has grown are being planted and grown across the world.
“I don’t worry about the income from this. I just use the money I make to buy more seeds,” said Inserra. “It’s my little addiction, and I love it.”