Choosing vegetable seeds - how and what do I buy? - Greenside Up

2. How much space do you have? Will you be growing in containers, a small back or front garden, in flower borders, raised beds, or a larger allotment?

For more information, please visit Dayu.

Seed companies are now producing plants developed to grow specifically in containers, such as dwarf baby tomatoes that can be grown in hanging baskets and can withstand drought better.

Cabbages take up a lot of room and take a long time to grow. Choosing Savoy, red or white cabbages will give you a winter crop when everything else is sparse and they’re often more expensive in the shops too.

Some vegetables can be very decorative such as courgettes and rainbow chard. These wouldn’t be out-of-place in flower gardens and runner beans can be grown over pergolas and archways.

3. Do you hope to provide all of the vegetables for your family’s needs year round or just ones you particularly like that are perhaps unusual or expensive, such as shallots or asparagus?

To be fully self-sufficient in your vegetable requirements will need quite a lot of space and a greenhouse or polytunnel. You will also need to be fairly organised – by making comprehensive plans for your crop rotation – and be prepared to put in the time and effort of year round sowing, planting and harvesting.

4. How much time do you have to tend to your crops? Some will need more care than others.

Upright tomatoes for instance will need daily watering and side shooting (pruning), whereas bush varieties don’t. Bean and pea pods will need to be picked on a daily basis too once they’re ready. As soon as you stop picking them, they will stop producing pods.

If you plant a three metre double row of runner beans under good soil conditions, not only will you have to pick them daily, you will also have to eat or store about 27kgs of beans. Storing beans usually involves blanching them (plunging them in boiling water for a couple of minutes), then bagging them up and freezing them.

5. What soil type do you have?

Knowing whether you have sandy or clay soil will help you choose varieties. For instance carrots prefer to grow in a light soil. If you have to grow vegetables in heavy clay, choosing a round, quick maturing early variety is likely to give you better results. (As the roots wont need to swell as much, they wont be as bothered by the sticky clay).

6. How acid or alkaline is your soil?

Most vegetables prefer to grow in a neutral soil with a pH of around 6.5 to 7, although potatoes are much happier growing in acidic soil of 4.5 to 6.0. If you try growing them in soil with a pH of around 8, they’re not likely to grow as well.

7. Are you aware of any pests or diseases in your soil such as eelworm or clubroot?

Potato eelworm is a microscopic pest that lives in the soil. The cysts can remain in the soil for years, developing only when a crop is planted there.
Clubroot is a disease that can affect Brassica (cabbage type crops). It’s more likely to exist in poorly drained, acidic soils.

Carrot root and cabbage root fly can devastate crops.

Potato blight is a parasitic fungus that can affect other members of the potato (Solanaceae) family such as tomatoes.

Many varieties of vegetables have now been bred to be resistant to these and other problems. If you’re not sure if you’re looking at a pest or a beneficial insect, here’s a couple of posts that will point you in the right direction. The first one here on recognising the good guys, the second on recognising the bugs you don’t want to see hanging out in your vegetable garden.

8. Are you growing 100% organically?

If so you will have to buy organic seeds. If you’re growing chemically free, make sure you choose seeds that haven’t been treated with fungicides. Most importantly choose seeds that have not been Genetically Modified (GM).

Ask your neighbours what they have grown successfully.

If somebody’s growing vegetables nearby to you, they’re more likely to have a similar soil type and pests than a friend or relative 40 miles away. Use their experience as a guide. However, if friends are growing potatoes or onions that aren’t as fussy about soil, try out their recommendations.

Keep a note of what you’ve planted.

If you had great success with a variety of carrots for instance, make a note and buy that variety again. Or try a couple of different varieties and note which one performs the best. If you decide to grow kale (which isn’t just for the animals, it’s rich in vitamins A, C, E and iron) and you’re not struck on the flavour, don’t be put off kale completely, try a different variety the next time.

No matter how good a memory you have, I promise you will forget what variety you’ve planted, where and when, by the end of the growing season if you don’t mark rows and keep notes. It really is worth the effort.

Get hold of a decent seed catalogue or find a good on-line seed supplier.

Hardback and paperback gardening books often have suggestions of recommended varieties of vegetables that aren’t available in garden centres, on-line or seed catalogues. Use these suggestions as a guide only. If the variety you’ve chosen says “early” or “main crop”, that’s the part to remember.

“Early” means it matures much faster – in the case of carrots 12 – 18 weeks and “main crops” will mature in 18 – 24 weeks. However, earlies can be planted later and main crops earlier!

If you want to buy seeds locally, but are doing your research in a catalogue or book, look out for the words “good resistance to…”, “resistant to bolting”, “keeps well” or “quick-growing” rather than the named varieties – you may be able to find something similar.

Looking at seed catalogues or on-line shops will help you to become familiar with currently available varieties.

Some seed companies save and grow their own seeds – Brown Envelope Seeds and Irish Seed Savers in Ireland or The Real Seed Company in the UK for instance. They may have heritage or old varieties that are no longer available from the big commercial companies and may be better suited to the local growing conditions – be guided by their suggestions.

What are F1 Hybrids?

These are seeds that have been made by crossing two strong parent plants. The result is a seed with excellent vigour, quality and disease resistance that you can expect to perform well. They are more expensive than other seeds but it’s usually worth paying extra for the almost guaranteed performance. You cannot save the seed from F1 Hybrids however as they will not breed true – often reverting back to a parent.

If you want to learn more, please visit our website Vegetable Seeds.

Awards of Merit

The Royal Horticultural Society in the UK carries out continual assessments and trials of seeds. The best are given the Award of Merit – Gold, Silver or Bronze.

We’re in the homestretch now ground redeemers! Today’s post is the last of 4 posts I’ve done over the past few weeks on Vegetable Garden Basics. In case you’ve missed the other posts, here’s where you can find them:

• • Part 1: Where should I put my vegetable garden?
  • Part 2: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Raised Beds
  • Part: 3: The What’s & How Much’es

Today I’ll answer the last 3 questions I hear most frequently:

• • Is there any rhyme or reason as to where certain plants go relative to one another?
  • Should I plant seeds or starter plants?
  • When should I get started?

Is there any rhyme or reason as to where certain plants go relative to one another?

The quick answer to the question…Does it matter where you grow certain plants relative to others?…is…yes. And it depends primarily on a few things: 1. access; 2. sun/shade; and 3. the plants themselves.

1. Access: This may seem obvious, but you need to make sure that you plant your plants where you can get to them easily…to both harvest the fruits of your labor and to take care of them. For instance, you don’t want to plant your tall tomato, okra, or pepper plants where it makes it difficult to get to your smaller plants.

And I realize, it’s sometimes difficult to visualize all of this when you’re starting with seeds or planting starter plants…with everything being so small. But do your research to better understand how big your plants will get when they’re full-grown…and be smart about your placement.

2. Sun/Shade: Similarly, you should take into account how the sun travels over your garden…making sure that you place your plants in such a way that your taller plants don’t shade out your shorter plants.

3. The Plants Themselves:  You also need to take into consideration that some plants grow better near each other and some don’t. It’s called companion planting…which essentially means putting plants that help each other near each other…and those that inhibit growth, away from each other.

Rather than recreating it myself, here’s a link to an excellent chart on the Urban Farmer website that very clearly maps out which plants are compatible and which plants are combative…by plant. Bookmark this one…because I’m fairly certain you’ll want to go back to it each time you plan your garden.

Should I plant seeds or starter plants?

There are a number of things you need to consider when answering the question seeds or starter plants? 1. Cost; 2. Time; 3. Timing; 4. Risk; and 4. Fun/Education.

So you’ll have to decide for yourself…depending on what you’re looking to achieve and how much time you have to get plants into the ground. But here’s my take on which option wins out along these variables:

1. Cost [Advantage…Seeds]
Quite simply, seeds are a ton cheaper than starter plants. Even though you may have to buy a few things for the seeding process…at the end of the day, going the seed route will be less costly.

2. Time [Advantage…Starter Plants]
Starting from seeds is a process…a process that takes a good bit of baby-sitting, which takes time. Whereas it takes relatively no time to put a starter plant in the ground.

3. Timing [Advantage…Starter Plants…kind of…]
Simply put, you may be too late to consider the option of going with seeds. So starter plants may be your only option. That’s because there’s only a certain window when you can have your seeds grown enough to be ready to plant at the right time of year. But depending on what you want to grow and if you’re in the right window…you may be able to start from seeds. (See the section below for more on this.)

4. Risk [Advantage…Starter Plants]
One of the biggest advantages to starter plants is that it’s actually already a plant vs. risking your being able to successfully grow a plant from a seed. The other advantage is…when buying starter plants, you can pick those plants that look the healthiest.

5. Fun/Education [Advantage…Seeds]
We started our first veggie garden from growing seeds inside. And although it took considerably more effort and time, it was a lot of fun. The girls and I loved caring for our babies…making sure they always had enough water, moving them in and out of the house to “harden them off”, and transplanting them from the starter trays to small pots. We really enjoyed the entire process.

But beyond that, it was a great opportunity to educate them on where food comes from. You see, we didn’t start growing our own food for the direct health benefits (although important) or to reduce our grocery bill (because it probably hasn’t). But we primarily did it to help give our girls a better appreciation for food…understanding what real food is vs. what it’s not. And from there…our hope is that they will make better decisions when it comes to what they put in their mouths. We feel seeing a plant grow from a seed helps do that.

When should I get started?

You need to get started…now! Kind of kidding, but kind of not.

The truth is…regardless of when it is, there’s  always something you could be doing in or for your veggie garden. From planning and prepping…to planting and harvesting…it’s a year-round affair.

But that’s probably not where you wanted me to go with this question. You were probably wondering when you should put some plants in the ground…or if you’re really industrious, when you should start some plants from seeds.

Well…like my responses to several of the other questions is…it depends.

• • It depends on what you want to grow…as the time for seed germination and plant growth cycles differ among plants.
  • It also depends on where you live…as the climate significantly impacts what you can plant when…really revolving around the frost dates in your area.

So rather than giving you a generic response…or giving you the dates that only apply to those of you who live near me, I’m instead going to send you over to a few of links on the Old Farmer’s Almanac site and let you figure it out for yourselves.

I know this is one or two extra steps for you, but at least you’ll be relying on accurate dates, rather than a cute printable from Pinterest…only to find out that the dates were for Oregon and not Florida…where you live!

• • To know when the expected frost dates are in your area, go to the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Frost Date Calendar. From there all you’ll need to do is enter your zip code…and viola, you’ll know when your first and last frost dates are expected to be.
  • From there, go to the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Vegetable Garden Planner. With your known last expected frost date in hand, you’ll be able to back into when it’s recommended to start seeds inside or sow them directly into the ground…which is also when you can put your starter plants in the ground. The added bonus with this chart is it links to free planting and growing guides for over 20 of the most popular vegetables.

• • Now, if you really don’t care about the frost dates and want to skip directly to a more general planting calendar for your area, go to the Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Best Planting Dates Calendar. Here you’ll again enter your zip code…and out will appear a printable planting chart for 30 of your favorite vegetables. The chart will also tell you when you can expect to harvest your veggie lovelies…and, if you provide your address, you can sign up for emailed planting reminders.

So do yourself a favor and bookmark these links so that you can have them handy when you need them again.

Phew…that was a ton of information, right?! But I told you that I was going to be aggressive this week.

Regardless, I hope you were able to get through it all and that you found this entire series helpful…and are now ready to tackle starting your very own family vegetable garden.

If you have other questions…please let me know. I’d love to help you.

For more information, please visit Pumpkin seeds.