Tag Archives: garden planning

6 Tips for Ordering Vegetable Garden Seeds

It’s that time of year again! After a short break, we’re already dreaming up next year’s garden, and soon, we’ll be flipping through the seed catalogs. Whether you’re an experienced grower or a first-time gardener, you should consider a few things when ordering vegetable garden seeds. 

Get your order in early.

In many areas, the demand for vegetable seeds has remained higher than usual since the pandemic. We’ve found that this is especially true for staple crops like heirloom dent corn and pole beans, which are more challenging for large seed growers to produce. Getting your order in early ensures you don’t miss out on your favorite varieties.

Additionally, getting your order in earlier will help ensure you get your plants started on time. It may seem unbelievable for new gardeners, but we begin the growing season in January, tucking cold, hardy crops like bulb onions and broccoli into flats indoors. Hence, they’re ready for transplanting in early spring.

USDA Hardiness Zone MapKnow your climate.

Knowing your hardiness zone can help you decide what plants and seeds best suit your area. The USDA just released an updated U.S. Hardiness Zone Map, and we have a Guide to Understanding Hardiness Zones you can check out.

One of the biggest things to consider when ordering your seeds for your climate is their days to maturity. Some crops like Vates Collards are quick, maturing in just 68 days, meaning you can get multiple successions even in many northern areas. Other crops like Rouge Vif d’Etampes (Cinderella) Pumpkin take a long, warm 120 days to mature.

Bulb onions, in particular, can be tricky. You’ll notice that there are long-day (LD) and short-day (SD) onions. Long-day onions need 14 to 15 hours of daylight to bulb, while short-day onions need 10 to 12 hours of daylight. For the LD types that we carry, you can plant them from Virginia northward. SD types can be spring or fall-planted in Virginia and fall-planted in the South.

Be realistic about your space and time.

It’s easy to end up with a vast seed order after flipping through the seed catalogs on a dreary winter day. Dreaming about all the heirloom varieties thriving in your garden invokes a sense of hope and excitement for the season to come. 

However, ordering more than you have the time and space for can lead to disappointment. It’s better to have a smaller garden you can manage and enjoy spending time in than a large, unproductive, weedy patch.

Cucumbers, beet, garlic in basketConsider pest and disease resistance.

Check out disease-resistant varieties, especially if you’ve had past issues with a specific crop. We carry many varieties with particular disease or pest resistance. You’ll find keys to disease and pest resistance on our website and catalog, like this tomato disease resistance key. For example, tomatoes marked “ab” are Alternaria (early blight) resistant, and cucumbers marked “cub” are resistant to cucumber beetles.

Think about pollinators.

A vegetable garden is nothing without pollinators—the healthier your local population of pollinators, the healthier and more productive your garden. Consider adding a few flowers to the mix. Even if you’re working with limited space, flowers can help improve production. One study found that flower strips and hedgerows in crop fields reduced pest pressure and improved pollination and yield. Flowers are worth it!

Gochugaru Hot Pepper
Gochugaru Hot Pepper

Focus on your favorites.

Your garden should bring joy to your life and kitchen. If you love Caprese salad, try out varieties like Lettuce Leaf Basil to maximize production or Red Rubin Basil to add a unique purple flair. Love kimchi or Korean sauces? Try growing the classic Korean Gochugaru hot pepper. Have you always wanted to make your hot sauce? Opt for something like the juicy Xochiteco Hot Pepper from Southern Mexico. 

On the flip side, if you never buy winter squash, adding them to your garden may not be the best plan because they’re an excellent storage crop. Use your space wisely and get the most enjoyment out of your vegetable patch possible.

When the catalogs start pouring in, making decisions can be tough! Keep these six simple tips in mind as you order your vegetable garden seeds this year.

7 Underrated Crops for Your Garden

Many gardeners already know the joys of fresh, crisp cucumber, the sweet tenderness of fresh asparagus stems, or the juicy, sweet, yet tart flavor of tomatoes still warm from the sun. However, when we begin growing our own food, we find many vegetables and varieties we can grow that aren’t found in the supermarket. This season, we encourage you to branch out and try one of these lesser-known or underrated crops. Many of these are tasty, nourishing additions to the garden that fell out of favor with the advent of industrial agriculture.

Southern Peas or Cowpeas

Cowpeas are an underrated southern staple crop. The greens can be used as a potherb, the young pods can be used similar to green beans before the peas harden, or you can harvest them as dry peas for use in recipes like Hoppin’ John. These peas are commonly mashed and fried like falafels in parts of Africa. 

They’re good for the garden too! Many beneficial insects find them attractive, and they’re nitrogen-fixing. Some cowpeas, like Iron & Clay, are often grown as a cover crop for these reasons.

Salsify (root crops)Salsify

Salsify is rarely seen at the grocery store or even at farmer’s markets. It was brought to the Americas by European colonists, but it never gained widespread popularity. However, there’s always been a devoted few who love this crop.

Salsify has a unique, almost oyster-like flavor you won’t find in other root crops. It also keeps well in the ground, helping you to stretch the season and eat fresh garden vegetables longer. 

American Purple Top Yellow Rutabaga

Rutabaga

Rutabagas or Swedes are hardy root crops that fell out of fashion with modern grocery stores and shipping, though they remain popular in areas with cold climates like Canada. They are also still common in pasties in parts of the US, especially Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. 

They have a unique flavor, which some people find takes a bit of adjusting to. That said, they’re a hardy and nourishing addition to winter meals. If you’re unsure you’ll like them, try Gilfeather Turnip Rutabagas, a famous heirloom cross between turnips and rutabagas selected and named by Vermont farmer Jack Gilfeather. They’re sweeter than most rutabagas and have tender, tasty greens.

Cress

Easy to grow and with a peppery zing, it’s hard to believe cress has not gotten much recognition among the fandoms of greens like baby mustards and kale. Once a winter staple in parts of the mountain south, cress is full of vitamin C, a once life-saving characteristic when times were tough. In fact, Belle Isle Cress earned its name when 17th-century Portuguese sailors shipwrecked on Canada’s Belle Isle survived the winter thanks to these greens. Try cress as a potherb, in salads, or in the classic British egg and cress sandwich. 

Garden Huckleberry

These dark berries may look a bit ominous, but they’re a tasty, sweet relative of the tomato. Garden Huckleberries or Wonderberries have a huckleberry-like flavor, making them excellent for dessert fillings, jellies, syrups, and more.

They’re a great fruit option for renters who can’t put perennial fruit trees or bushes into their garden plots. However, be aware that the green fruits are likely toxic and should not be consumed. 

Hollow Crown (Sugar) Parsnip
Hollow Crown (Sugar) Parsnip

Parsnips

Parsnips are another root vegetable that has been used since antiquity but quickly fell out of prominent use when industrial agriculture, shipping, and grocery stores made produce accessible year-round, replacing root cellars and home canning. 

Parsnips have a sweet, earthy flavor. While they may not be gorgeous or Instagram-worthy vegetables, they are a great choice for a winter storage crop. 

Celeriac

This crop may not win any beauty contests, but it does have great flavor. Celeriac has sweet, starchy, globe-shaped roots that are excellent to use in soups and stews, boiled and pureed, fried in butter, or grated into salads.

Celeriac thrives in cool weather, making it another great option for those looking to extend their season. 

 

We’re not big into “superfoods” and don’t believe that any of these crops will change your life. However, we do think these crops are all a bit underrated. Roots like celeriac, parsnips, rutabagas, cress, and salsify can help you eat from your garden a little longer each year. Huckleberries are a fun, unique fruit to try and one of the few annual fruits you can add to your garden without a big investment. Southern peas are versatile, tasty, easy to grow, and full of protein. Try a few of these underrated crops in your garden next season!

When to Plant a Fall Garden

Growing a fall garden allows us to extend our season and get more vegetables, herbs, and flowers out of our space. In Virginia, where we’re located and farther south, it gives us a second opportunity to enjoy some cool-weather-loving crops like peas and spinach for a second time. However, as we’ll discuss below, the name fall gardening can be a bit misleading, you will be harvesting in the fall, but for many crops, you’ll be sowing during the summer.

When Do I Start My Fall Garden?

The short answer is it depends. Where you’re located and what you choose to grow will dictate the sowing times for your garden. The first step is to consider you’re hardiness zone and determine your first frost date. Then look at the days to maturity for crops you’re considering planting.

While frost may seem like the primary factor in a fall garden, you must also consider the day length. During the fall, the days rapidly get shorter, and this, rather than cold temperatures, slows crop growth.

To take this into consideration, you want to add 14 days to the days to maturity time for any variety you’ll direct sow and 14 to 28 days for any variety you will be transplanting. This longer period helps account for setback and transplant shock. 

Once you have your days to maturity plus the added days for daylight, you can count backward from your first frost date to determine your last possible start date. 

For example, let’s say we wanted to plant Capitan Bibb lettuce (62 days to maturity) in a zone 6b garden with an estimated first frost of October 20th. We’ll take 62 days and add 14 days because we’ll be direct sowing it, to get a total of 76 days. If we look at a calendar and count backward 76 days from October 20th, we get August 7th. Therefore we can sow Capitan Bibb lettuce up to August 7th in this garden and expect harvests. 

At 62 days, Capitan Bibb is also a rather quick-maturing crop. If you want a fall garden, it’s best to start planning early! In zone 7a, we begin direct sowing slower maturing crops like cauliflower as early as June 1st.

Garden Apps and Calendars

These days, gardening apps can be very helpful for determining planting dates. Our own garden planner features planting dates based on your zip code. The Farmer’s Almanac also has a planting date calculator and a first frost date calculator on its website. 

If you’d like a more analog option and are located in zone 7, like we are, feel free to check out our planting list pdf. Also, many states and extension agencies offer planting calendars, so be sure to check your local resources as well. 

What Should I Plant?

You can include a wide array of crops in your fall garden, with the exception of some long-season crops like field pumpkins.

We often lean towards cool-season crops like brassicas, peas, greens, and root vegetables when planning fall gardens. While these may last us longer into fall than their warm-weather counterparts, we can still include them in our plans as well. Especially in southern areas, you can start later plantings of squash, beans, sweet corn, and even tomatoes to ensure second harvests at the beginning of fall. 

In the past, we’ve often set out some tomatoes in the second half of June to ensure we had good production for fall tomato tastings. Here are a few of the crops you can consider planting for fall:

  • Cauliflower
  • Cabbages
  • Summer Squash
  • Beets
  • Beans
  • Peas
  • Southern Peas
  • Chinese Cabbage
  • Swiss Chard 
  • Collards
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Lettuce
  • Parsnips
  • Rutabaga
  • Broccoli

Planting in the Fall

There are also a few crops that you can plant in the fall to harvest next season. Some, like bulb onions, brassicas, greens, and certain flowers, we overwinter when they’re still small to get an early spring harvest. Others, like garlic and perennial onions, need a cold period to produce well. 

Planning these out ahead of time can help ensure you get a good selection when ordering. For example, we’re already taking garlic orders, even though we’ll ship it out at the appropriate time during the fall based on your location. 

If you’re always sad to see the garden season come to an end, consider adding more fall crops to your garden this season. Start planning your fall garden now to ensure all your crops are in on time and you have abundant harvests!