December 19, 2016

Avalanche column

November 24, 2016

Selecting garden seeds can be fun but it can also be overwhelming.

Do you want bush varieties or vine types, early ripening or latter varieties, large storage types or single serve types.

These are just some of the questions a gardener may want to answer as they are selecting seeds.

My seeds “bible”, “The Garden Seed Inventory” 6^th edition and printed by the Seed Savers Exchange has been very helpful with this . This book was printed in 2004 and at that time it listed all of the open pollinated and heirloom seeds that were available in the US and Canada. The listings describe the veggie and then also where you can purchase your selections.

I have found this book to be extremely valuable to me.

One of my big selection criteria is short season. Short season crops tend to be more cold tolerant and ripen very quickly. Even though they may have been propagated for northern states they work very well in the south too.

There are some very good reasons that I like to do this.

Short season veggies ripen quicker and can be easily forced so that summer veggies can be harvested much quicker than you would expect. Starting veggies early allows me to have well established plants going into the angry months of May and June. One more very good reason helps me cope with a pest that I have in the garden.

Root Knot Nematodes (RKN) are very very tiny worm like creatures that burrow into the roots of most all vegetable varieties. In the process of feeding and reproducing they cause the roots to form galls. In worst the cases the roots no longer look like roots but a mass of convoluted and swollen root material. RKN become active once the soil reaches 65 degrees.

Plants can grow in cooler or warmer soil than what they will germinate in. This is fundamental to one of my RKN management practices.

Starting seedlings very early and out planting the plants before the RKN become active, I can get good harvests before they succumb to the galling. In some cases the roots can grow outside infected areas and survive all season.

This book allows a gardener to make seed selections that are very pertinent to their needs and can be quite fun to do. For example there are over 60 pages of tomatoes with 20 plus varieties to the page. Of course this covers every color of tomato that you can imagine. This can be overwhelming but I like to think of it as an adventure to see what wonderful varieties are available. Monsanto eat your heart out!! By and large most of these seeds are available through small “Mom and Pop” seed houses. Most likely Front Street Books can get you a copy. ALL of the veggies available in this book can be saved for future gardens and how cool is that!!!!!