Tips for Choosing Garden Seed

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Tips for choosing your garden seed this year.  What are you planning to grow?

Yesterday we started to get the first of our seed catalogs in the mail.   It is always exciting when those catalogs start coming. It gives you a little hope that spring really is on the way!

How to choose garden seeds

Now, what do I want to plant this year? Which seeds should I choose? Which brand is the best to buy? Do I want organic, heirloom or just conventional seeds?  After all, I am putting a lot of work into my garden. I want to plant the best seeds for success!

I like to order my seeds from True Leaf Market. I have had good luck with this company.  Thier seeds have a high germination rate and grow well in my garden. But before ordering seeds, there are a few things you need to look at.   Because let’s face it not all growing seasons are alike.

The first thing to look at is the growing season itself. Each area of the United States is divided into sections or zones. Not sure what zone you are in?  You can look on this USDA Zone Chart.

Which zone are you in?

Each zone is a little different. We are about a zone 3 and sometimes I think a zone 2, although on some charts it shows a zone 4.  We can freeze any month of the year. Yes, even frost in July! Most of the trees that we have planted are a zone 2 or 3 just for this reason.  When buying seeds for our vegetable garden, we take all things into consideration.

Since we can freeze any month of the year we look for seeds that have the shortest maturing time possible.  This is especially true for our corn, squash, tomatoes, beans, cucumbers and any other vegetable that may be tender to a frost.

How many days of growing

For the vegetables that can take a frost, we still look for the shortest growing season possible.  Even though they can take the colder weather, they still need to mature before we have a killing frost.  We try for vegetables that will mature in 58 days or less.  But sometimes the vegetable just doesn’t fit the criteria.  So we settle for the best we can.

You also need to consider vegetables that can be grown in your area.  Unless you are lucky enough to have a greenhouse, you just can’t grow some plants in some areas.

Also look at your soil.  For the most part, the vegetables that I want to plant will grow well in my soil, but this is a consideration.  We happen to have a sandy loam in the garden area, although in some areas on our farm we have clay.  If this is the case you just need to work on building your soil into what you need it to be by composting.

What are you going to grow?

Now you know what to look for in your seeds, it is time to make your list of what you would like to grow this year in your garden.  Some seeds I start indoors, but remember, even though you are looking forward to spring don’t start them to early or you will be growing a jungle.  This is one of my biggest weaknesses.  I never claimed to have patients.

Get your seeds ordered and look forward to preparing your ground as soon as spring arrives.

Happy planting.  I would love to hear your thoughts, just leave them below.