6 Great Tips To Consider Before Buying Seed!

While the weather outside screams anything but spring and summer, now is the proper time to obtain seed for those who want to start their gardens with healthier plants.

With so many wonderful varieties from which to choose, here are a few tips to bring you success!

• Be realistic - if you are new to gardening, growing an entire garden from seed can present a challenge and be somewhat overwhelming.  Instead, choose a few crops that you really want to grow and focus your attention on learning everything you can about them.  By learning about the strengths and weaknesses of each variety grown, you can set yourself up for success by providing the proper conditions they need to do well.  Each year build upon that knowledge and add a few more things to the list.  Fill out the rest of the garden with high quality transplants from reputable suppliers.  If you don't have lights for raising seedlings, no problem, many vegetables lend themselves very well to direct sowing once the ground temperatures warm.  Beans, cucumbers, melons, peas, and squash are just a few examples.  

• Do your research - many have heard me say this before, but research is such an integral part of gardening.  Choosing the right varieties that will perform well within our growing environment sets us all up for success.  Look for those varieties that will resist the common diseases we encounter in a shared growing environment.  By knowing the individual needs of your plants and the likely issues they may face, you may be able to take preventative measures to ward off trouble before it arises.  Keep in mind when purchasing seed that resistance to disease and tolerant of disease mean two very different things.

• Are they suitable to our growing area - many plants will still perform very well outside their ideal growing conditions if you compensate for any challenges they face, know what you're getting into, and make those choices wisely.  If an organic grower, you never want to be very dependent on heavy chemical use to bring your plants to harvest.  An example of this is one of my favorite tomatoes that I grow each year, Black Prince.  With its origins to Siberia, this little gem is listed in catalogs as a variety that performs well in areas with cool summers. However, it still produces quite well in my garden with nothing more than an extra layer of mulch and a tad of shade during the hottest part of the day.  These two measures compensate enough for the higher ground temperatures.  If this same variety required the heavy use of blossom sprays in order to produce fruit, outside the plants normal temperature range for setting, I would then reconsider my choice of variety.  While many of these sprays are natural, I still want to lessen my dependency on them as much as possible.

• Choose the perfect partners - when looking at seeds it is important to choose things that will complement each other if your space is limited.  Are you going to create a nightmare for yourself by choosing varieties that all produce at the same time? Do you have varying degrees of height in those you do choose? Are they good plant companions? What are the soil requirements? Do they have the same moisture needs?  Are you considering everything at the point of full maturity?  It all goes back to doing your research and reaching out to others to learn what brings them success in the garden.  Many of the seed companies now have free garden planners on their sites that allow you to plug in different vegetables and get a feel for how your garden will look.  Sometimes this visual allows you to see mistakes in planning early on and enables the necessary corrections before you have a problem.  

• How much to grow - a little seed does go a long way and it is easy to be caught up with descriptions that make you want to drool and try everything under the sun!  Unfortunately, space is most always the limiting factor.  Here is a cheat sheet from The National Gardening Association with some guidelines for feeding a family of four.  Keep in mind these are only estimates and this sheet does not look like it allows for those who enjoy preserving part of their harvest.

        http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/growing-vegetables-for-a-family-of-four.html

• Buy from reputable suppliers - last but not least is to buy from reputable sources.  Not all seed is created equal and germination rates vary widely among suppliers.  Some companies only meet the USDA guidelines, while others far excel.  If shopping local, avoid the retailers that store their seed outdoors in the common garden areas.  These conditions will expose the seeds to high levels of heat and humidity.  This in turn will have a dramatic effect on their longevity and viability for future use.  Check for seed companies online that go the extra mile and test their lots for disease to ensure your success.  For example, Johnny's Selected Seeds tests several varieties of their basil lots to ensure that they are free from the downy mildew pathogen before they are ever packaged and shipped.  Since we know downy mildew is a problem in our area, it is just one more precaution we can take to start tilting the odds for a healthy harvest in our favor.     

Happy Gardening,

Denise, Beds 25 & 29