vegetable seeds

Seeds for the Small Space Garden, part 2

27 January, 2019 by amygwh

When choosing vegetable varieties for a small space garden, identifying varieties that will live, in your garden’s soil and local climate, to produce good food, is essential. You can read Part 1, the previous post, to learn one way to find reliable crop varieties to grow. This post, Part 2, offers another, less formal way.

Simple project that identified reliable heirloom varieties for my area

A couple of years ago, a friend — Electa — and I discovered that, between us, we had

grown more than 300 vegetable varieties, in Georgia, listed in Baker Creek’s 2017 Whole Seed Catalog. This wasn’t a truly random discovery. We were going through the vegetable section of the catalog together, page by page, noting which varieties we had grown and how those varieties did in our gardens, as part of another project.

How does this help you? We created a list, with some notes, of all the Baker Creek varieties either Electa or I had grown (or tried to grow). If your garden is in the Southeastern U.S., planting zone 7b or 8, then plants that did well for us may be ones you want to try.

If you live in a very different climate/soil zone, you might want to try creating a similar list with gardening friends near you.

A short version of the list is included below (keep reading, it’s down there).

Heirloom varieties may be desirable, but disease resistance is unknown

Many organic gardeners are drawn to heirloom varieties of vegetable crops. These varieties have been saved by individuals and families, because of flavor (usually) or because they freeze well, or are good for canning or for drying, or because they are an essential ingredient in a beloved recipe. Heirloom varieties provide the base for a lot of good food. However, there is a downside to heirloom varieties.

Varieties that were developed in university research programs usually have been tested for disease resistance. Heirloom varieties haven’t.

To find out which varieties will grow and produce well, gardeners either have to rely on trial-and-error in their own gardens, or they need to talk with other local gardeners to find out which varieties have done well in gardens nearby.

Heirloom vegetable varieties in our list

As you probably know, Baker Creek specializes in heirloom and open-pollinated varieties. These do not come with lab-verified disease resistance, but some of the varieties offered in the 2017 Whole Seed Catalog have done great for us, here in the humid Southeastern U.S., where plant diseases can destroy a garden. Other varieties died within weeks, before much — if any — food could be harvested.

Not all of the varieties Electa and I have grown are appropriate for small space gardens. Most winter squashes and pumpkins, for example, are vining plants that can grow 20-30 feet, smothering the nearby lawn and the rest of the garden if care is not taken to re-direct the growing vine-tips back into their own space. Some okra varieties grow to be 8-or-more feet tall.

A short version of the list that Electa and I created, after going through the catalog and marking all the varieties we had tried, is below.

Our heirloom varieties report for North Georgia

We had more to say about some crops than others. This is our experience with the listed cucumber varieties we had tried:

Notes about which cucumber varieties do best in our Georgia gardens, including notes on flavor.

If you want to see the full list, all 13 pages, you can download Electa and Amy’s list of vegetable varieties from the 2017 Baker Creek Whole Seed catalog, with notes about productivity (including scientific terms like “recommended”, “iffy”, and “no”) and about flavor, with regard to how they did in our gardens.

Our favorites from the list, for most vegetables, are included below:

BEANS – Rattlesnake Pole, Mountaineer Half Runner, Jackson Wonder bush lima
BEETS – Bull’s Blood (but harvest early), Detroit Dark Red
BROCCOLI – Goliath, Waltham
CABBAGE – Golden Acre
CAULIFLOWER – Purple of Sicily
CARROTS – Oxheart, Danvers 126 Half Long, Little Finger, Nantes Scarlet, Parisienne
CORN – Glass Gem (because it is so beautiful), Dakota Black Popcorn
COWPEAS – Purple Hull Pinkeye, Pigott Family (needs a trellis)
CUCUMBER – Beit Alpha, Marketmore 76, Straight Eight
EGGPLANT – Aswad, Casper (especially for container growing), Black Beauty (gets seedy, so harvest early), Ukrainian Beauty, Rosa Bianca
ENDIVE AND ESCAROLE – Batavian Full Heart, De Louviers
SOLANUM BERRIES – Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherries (same family as tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, which can make crop rotation difficult)
ORIENTAL GREENS AND CABBAGE – Tatsoi (unusual flavor, but grew well)
SALAD GREENS – Corn Salad-Dutch and Corn Salad-Mache (both need cool weather to do well, and harvests are tiny – but tasty)
KALE AND COLLARDS – all are fine, Tronchuda gets huge (hilariously so)
LEEK – Giant Musselburgh (start in spring and allow a full year until harvest)
LETTUCE – Bronze Beauty, Buttercrunch, Henderson’s Black Seeded Simpson, Merveille des Quatre Saisons (Marvel of Four Seasons), Mignonette Bronze, Oak Leaf
MELON – Schoon’s Hardshell
OKRA – Louisiana 16″ Long Pod
ONION – all bulb-type onions must be Short Day type for Southern gardens
PARSNIP – Hollow Crown
GARDEN PEAS – Lincoln, Little Marvel, Wando
SNOW AND SNAP PEAS – all are fine
HOT PEPPERS – Leytschauer Paprika, Lightning Mix
SWEET PEPPERS – Banana, Chocolate Beauty, Lilac Bell, Quadrato d’Asti Giallo, Sheepnose Pimento
RADICCHIO & CHICORY – Italika Rosso Dandelion
RADISH – Chinese Red Meat, German Giant, Long Scarlet, Purple Plum
RUTABAGAS – American Purple Top
SPINACH – Bloomsdale Longstanding
SUMMER SQUASH – Yellow Crookneck, Zucchini Rampicante (vigorous, very long vines, productive)
SQUASH AND PUMPKINS – Big Max, Candy Roaster, Long Island Cheese, Seminole, Sucrine du Berry (all of these varieties grow to be crazy long vines)
SWISS CHARD – Perpetual Spinach
TOMATOES – Kellogg Breakfast (good flavor, but not a big producer), Arkansas Traveler, Black Krim, Rutgers, Great White, Yellow Pear
WATERMELON – Ali Baba, Crimson Sweet, Golden Honey, Sugar Baby

These are not the only varieties we grow

Collectively, Electa and I have more than 60 years of gardening experience in Georgia (we have both gardened in other states, too), so the “more than 300 varieties” should not have been a surprise. What really made us laugh was when we noticed that some of our favorites were missing from Baker Creek’s very large catalog, and we realized how many more than just 300 varieties we have tried.

Here is an example: when we finished the radish pages, Electa asked “Where are the Daikons?” She loves Daikon radishes, but there weren’t any in the 2017 catalog. My own favorite pole beans, ‘Blue Marbut’, I have seen only at Sand Hill Preservation Center, which is also the only source for ‘Straight Nine’ cucumbers.

The “more than 300 varieties” listed in Baker Creeks 2017 Whole Seed Catalog that we have grown were not all purchased through Baker Creek, but the names were the same, so we have counted them as being the same for this list.

Which heirloom varieties are in your tried-and-true list?

Ordering Seeds for the Small Space Garden

17 January, 2019 by amygwh

This is a favorite time of year for many gardeners. We pull together our seed catalogs, the notes we made about our gardens during the past year, and our dreams, and we start making lists.

Then, most of us order too many seeds. If you are in this group, know that you have plenty of company.

Some Seed Companies to Try

Items needed in determining what seeds to order for the coming garden: catalogs, leftover seeds, and planning notes — Seeds left from last year, a couple of seed catalogs, an order form, and notes about which seeds to buy for this year.

One seed company that I plan to order from this year has an online catalog only — not a print catalog. That company is Sand Hill Preservation Center. Strictly Medicinal Seeds and Nichols Garden Nursery have not yet sent out print catalogs, but they will arrive, eventually.

I also plan to order a Park Seed exclusive variety (Park’s Whopper tomato) from that seed company, and I have already sent in an order to Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Gardeners in the Southeastern U.S. might also look at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, that specializes in seeds for the mid-Atlantic states. Most of their seeds will do well across the whole Southeast.

A friend is looking for more container-sized varieties of veggies to grow, and I have suggested that she look at Renee’s Garden Seeds. That company seems to have a lot of miniature-sized crop varieties.

Consider plant size at maturity, disease resistance, heat tolerance

Most of the cool-season veggies that will go into the early spring garden are smaller plants — lettuces, beets, carrots, and spinach, for example. For those, size at maturity is less of an issue, and they will mostly do well even in the Southern U.S.

It would be good, though, to check the days-to-maturity. If a cool-season veggie variety matures in 100 days, the poor plants will end up trying to mature in May or June, when it is no longer cool here. Look for cool-season varieties that mature in much less time, more like 50-70 days, to give them a fighting chance in our short spring.

If you have a small space garden in the Southern U.S., and you are hoping for summer veggies, then you have a double problem. Many of the summertime veggie plants are large. The smaller garden needs right-sized plants that produce well AND that can stand up to all the heat/humidity/diseases that the summer will bring.

When you are looking at mini-sized versions of normally-large veggie-plants, look for information about hardiness and disease resistance. If the description says that the plant stands up well to the harsh conditions of England, you might want to look for another variety. The kind of harsh that is in England is cool/cloudy/wet, not the hot/humid/wet of the Southern U.S.

For the truly determined, it can be possible, with planning, to grow a normally large plant in a smaller space. If you decide to grow gourds, for example, you might “trellis” them up over the top of a shed to keep them from sprawling across the yard.

Switching to a smaller variety – an example from my garden

My garden used to be larger. It has been made smaller in the past few years due to a life change within my family. Change come to all gardens and all gardeners, and change isn’t all bad, but I have had to make adjustments in my gardening. Here is one change that I made this year:

In my order from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, I included a smaller cowpea than I have grown in the past. My most favorite cowpea on the planet (so far, of the dozen or so I have tried) is Pigott Family Heirloom Cowpea. However, that isn’t really a small space garden plant. The vines reach more that six feet.

The cowpea I chose from Baker Creek — Old Timer or Purple Hull Speckled — is indeed speckled in the photo, like Pigott Family is speckled, so I am hoping that it has similar flavor.

Saving Money When Ordering Seeds

Seeds can get expensive. Choosing reliable varieties reduces the odds of a total garden failure, and a waste of seeds, even when the weather gets weird.

Choose reliable varieties

For new gardeners, choosing reliable varieties can mean checking with your local Cooperative Extension office to get a good list. In Georgia, the list comes from UGA, and it is full of vegetable varieties that have done well in test gardens across the whole state. You can find Georgia’s list of reliable vegetable varieties at this link.

The planting dates included on that list are for middle-Georgia (Macon-ish), so those dates have to be adjusted if you live north or south of Macon. However, the varieties, some of which are heirloom varieties, are “tried and true”.

New gardeners may also want to check out my information on planting seeds in the garden, to improve the odds that the planted seeds will grow.

(For more about choosing heirloom varieties, see the next post – Seeds for the Small Space Garden Part 2.)

Pool seed orders with a friend, splitting shipping costs

One of my friends and I often place our seed orders together. Then, we split the shipping fee, so each of us only pays half the shipping cost.

When I send in a Baker Creek order, for example, her seeds go onto my order. This year, Baker Creek is sending out seeds without a shipping fee for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. We pooled our order anyway, even though it won’t save us money. We like Baker Creek, and asking them to send out one pile of seeds instead of two might reduce their costs by a tiny bit.

Also, this sharing by pooling our orders and splitting shipping fees (for other seed companies), is a long-standing tradition for us. Over the years, dividing shipping fees has saved us both a little. A similar practice might keep your costs down, too, and it is good to spend time discussing seeds and plants with other gardeners. The conversation is a bonus!

I did get some advice about this practice, though, from Louis in Customer Care at Baker Creek. He said that when seed orders are pooled, the person who placed the order will get a seed catalog the following year, but the other person will need to remember to request a catalog. Just keep that in mind.

Share a seed packet with a gardening friend

When we both have wanted to grow the same variety, my gardening friend and I have shared seeds from one packet. Only one of us ends up with the information on the original packet, but that has not been a problem. We know how to write the important parts (kind of veggie, variety name, source, year) on little envelopes.

Tomatoes for the South

19 March, 2018 by amygwh

Choosing which tomato varieties to grow is one of my favorite parts of the summer garden most years. When I first started gardening, I grew all my own tomato plants from seeds, indoors, because garden centers offered such a limited selection. Now, though, many more varieties, including some well-known heirlooms, are available. “Starting your own” is no longer essential for gardeners who would like to branch out a little in their tomato patch.

Anyone in the South who is new to gardening and planning to buy just a few plants to get started should look for varieties that are disease resistant. Those will have the letters “VFN” and possibly more letters and numbers somewhere on the plant label.

Costoluto genovese plants that were started from seeds indoors are nearly large enough to be planted in the garden. — Costoluto genovese plants that were started from seeds indoors, nearly large enough to be planted in the garden. PHOTO/Amy Whitney

The presence of the letters VFN is important because the problems the letters stand for — Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt, and Root Knot Nematode — are commonly present in soils across the whole region. The letter-code shows that the plants can survive and produce food even if those diseases are present in the garden.

Organic gardens have few spray-type options for disease control. Growing some of the disease-resistant varieties means that your garden can be productive even in a “bad” disease year.

If you add in one or two plants that has an unknown record of disease resistance (like many heirlooms), growing the disease resistant plants alongside can improve your chances of getting actual tomatoes.

For me, some of the tried-and-true tomato varieties are ‘Rutgers‘, ‘Park’s Whopper‘, and ‘Better Boy‘. Further South, ‘Homestead‘ is a reliable standard for other gardeners. Newer varieties that I have not yet tried, but that are shown to do well (and be delicious!) in the South are in the Mountain series — ‘Mountain Merit‘, ‘Mountain Pride’, and ‘Mountain Spring’ are in the group.

I am a normal sort of gardener, one who is pretty easily seduced by seed-catalog descriptions of plants, so I have grown many different tomato varieties mixed in with the tried-and-true, disease-resistant varieties. For most of them, I have kept actual written records. An abbreviated list of tomato varieties I’ve grown is below, to give you an idea of how the experimenting has gone in my yard.

Here’s the list:

Brandywine—The tomato that so many people love, dies in my yard.
Mr. Stripey—Dies in my yard.
Glacier—Dies in my yard.
Dad’s Sunset—Dies in my yard.
Riesentraube—Survived in my yard the one year I grew it, but the tomatoes tasted like sugar water (I won’t grow it again). It probably tastes better when grown in different soil, because one of my friends thinks it is a great little tomato.
Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter “VFN”—Does well in the drought years, but keels over, from one of the soil-borne wilt diseases, in very wet years. When it lives long enough to produce tomatoes, they are large and delicious. Indeterminate type.
Heatwave—I planted this one year as part of the later batch that goes in where and when the onions and garlic come out. The Rutgers that I planted at the same time were more productive and tasted a LOT better (I won’t grow it again). There is a newer ‘Heatwave II’ that may be tastier, but I find that I am reluctant to try it.
Rutgers—Determinate, meaty canning tomato that I plant most years; it is productive and tasty, but most of the tomatoes come at once, so it needs to be accompanied by a longer-producing indeterminate type to make sure tomatoes keep coming in all season.
Roma—Widely available paste-type tomato that does well in my yard; I’ve grown it in many different years.
Wuhib—Paste variety with good flavor that produces well even in crazy rainy years. More productive than Roma.
Cherokee Purple—This produces well even in years with crazy rains, and it is incredibly flavorful. Indeterminate type.
Amish—Not productive, but it survives in my yard; the fruits are large and attractive (yellow with pink swirls), and the flavor is incredible. Indeterminate type.
Gardener’s Delight—A cherry type. This plant remained healthy and productive throughout the whole summer in my yard, but the tomatoes all cracked before they were fully ripe (I won’t grow it again).
Sweet 100 and its even more productive relatives—Cherry type that has done well in my yard in many different years. Productive and tasty.
Better Boy—Widely available indeterminate big tomato that has done well in my yard in many different years. I usually just buy one or two of these at a store instead of growing my own from seed.
Costoluto Genovese—The first few years I grew these, they were from one seed packet from a source that went out of business before I could order more, but I had loved these tomatoes. A few years later, I ordered some from another source, but they were not the same; the fruits were less flattened, less lobed and less tasty. Indeterminate.
Park’s Whopper (Park)–Large, tasty slicer that produces well over the whole summer. Some of the local “old guy” gardeners, the ones who have been gardening for 40-50 years, grow this variety exclusively. Recommended.
ArkansasTraveler—Pink tomato that does well in my yard. Indeterminate.
Winter Red Hybrid (Burpee)—A long-keeper type that I usually plant in late June. Does exactly what it’s supposed to do and performs well in my yard.
Matt’s Wild Cherry—Cherry type that produces a whole lot of very small red tomatoes on a very indeterminate plant; the branches reach beyond ten feet by the end of the summer, so it isn’t the ideal plant for a small space, but the flavor of the little fruits is excellent.
Yellow Marble—Cherry type. The one year I grew this the plant was in a container, which could have affected the flavor, which was very tart; its true flavor and viability in an in-ground Southern garden are still untested.

The written records have provided some entertainment over the years, as I compare my own notes to descriptions in seed catalogs. Hopefully, though, these notes will be helpful for other Southern gardeners!

Time for a Quick Crop of Radishes

27 March, 2017 by amygwh

Plenty of gardeners in North Georgia wait until after mid-April to begin planting vegetable crops, but anyone who is a bit impatient can plant some radish seeds now.

Radishes grow best in the cooler weather of early spring, and they are ready to harvest just 4-5 weeks after they are planted. This makes radishes a great little crop to start the gardening year. Success comes so soon!

It used to be that most radish seeds in the garden centers and catalogues produced radishes that were just round and red.

Now, though, a whole range of colors and shapes are available, which makes pulling the little roots up at harvest time a great adventure. The same patch of garden that grew the pink and white (almost hidden under the pink) radishes in the picture also gave us purple, red, and yellow (!) radishes. All were delicious.

People who are Not From Around Here sometimes refer to radishes as a foolproof crop. I remember, when I first moved to Georgia, reading in more than one book/document, that “anyone can grow radishes.” That statement may be true in a sense, but the red-clay soil that is the base of my garden did not make a radish crop for the first couple of years, no matter how many seeds I set into the ground.

If your garden has been thwarting your radish-dreams, do not despair. The yearly addition of composts and other amendments, and having the soil tested to find out exactly what is needed to balance the nutrients for vegetable production, will soon enough bring plenty of these little beauties to your springtime table.

(Featured photo of radishes from author’s garden. PHOTO/AmyGWh)

When Can I Start Seeds for My Spring Garden?

29 January, 2017 by amygwh

The answer to “when can I start seeds for my spring garden” depends a lot on how much of a gambler you are. If you have seeds, seed-starting materials, and space with lighting galore, then anytime is probably a good time.

If, like me, you have limited space, lighting, and materials, following a more conservative schedule may be a better choice.

For spring veggies and early flowers, my first planting usually begins in mid-to late February. That is when I plant seeds for English peas (and sugar-snaps), spinach, dill, and early flowers like larkspur outdoors in the garden. That is also usually when I set some seed potatoes in a single layer in a lighted space indoors (sunny window can work) so they begin to sprout for mid-March planting.

The problem with planting earlier is that some seeds, peas especially, will rot in the ground if they are too cold and damp for too long. When they do come up, though, they can survive some very cold weather. So can little spinach seedlings. The dill and larkspur won’t come up until later, but they do better when planted early outdoors. That is just their way.

Seeds for other spring crops may come up in a stretch of warmish weather if planted outside very early, but if we get a return to actual winter, with temperatures dropping below 20 degrees F for more than a couple of hours, the little seedlings are not likely to survive. Spinach seedlings can take the cold, and it is possible that kale and collards can, too, but lettuces are less happy with such very cold nights, and new carrot seedlings might not make it, either.

Since the weather can still turn very cold in February, I keep an eye on the forecasts before planting even the most cold-hardy of veggies outside.

For most of my spring veggies, I wait until the first of March to start seeds indoors. That list usually includes lettuces, parsley, and beets. When these little plants are big enough, I move them outside for a few hours each day to help them adjust to life out-of-doors before transplanting them into the garden. By the end of March, they should be ready for that move.

Seeds for peppers often are slow to come up, and I tend to start some peppers, for summer, in the first or second week of March, too. Carrots can be planted outside at around the same time.

Tomatoes are a lot speedier to develop than peppers, so I tend to wait an extra week or two before starting any of those.

(Photo at top is of basil seedlings, started as seeds at the end of March, 2016, for sharing in May with other gardeners. Photo by Amygwh.)

Seeds for the Small Space Garden, part 2

Simple project that identified reliable heirloom varieties for my area