Whatever disasters occurred in last year's garden, whatever mistakes were made, whatever crops didn't fare quite the way we expected them to, it's all happily behind us.
January is a month of much anticipation that comes none too early with the first arrival of the seed catalogs.
I get as excited as anyone when I open a new catalog and pore over the detailed descriptions and glossy pictures of mouth-watering tomatoes and fancy- colored hybrid peppers. I'm further intrigued about new varieties of vegetables and flowers which have never been offered for sale in our region or have come from overseas.
It's extremely tempting to tear out the order form and start checking off seed packets from each page. Experience, though, has taught me that a good deal of temperament, restraint and careful consideration is needed before racking up the seed purchases.
Seed catalogs are carefully designed to entice you to buy as much as possible. The close-up, picture-perfect vegetables look great in the full-color catalogs, but that's not always how they end up looking on your dinner table. Nor can that gorgeous field of flowers shown in the catalog always turn out with the same blast of color in your own garden.
Last year, a particular type of nasturtium called "Milkmaid" was planted in my garden. The seed catalog showed the huge white flowers and described it as a "lost seed"
The meaning here is not to shy away from trying new types of flowers and vegetables, but rather, to make an informed decision of what seeds will grow into plants that will perform well, under a variety of often adverse conditions.
For the novice gardener, reading and understanding a seed catalog's descriptions can make all the difference in the garden. It's not always the tomato on the cover of the catalog that is the best choice for your garden. It takes a bit of learning to make sure that the selections you make are proper for your growing region, garden size and tastes.
There exists a super-compressed lingo that nearly all seed companies use, and it's in your interest to acquaint yourself with it.
Variety name: The name of a vegetable or flower usually comes from the seed company or plant breeder who "invented" it.
Roaming from catalog to catalog, you'll notice that some varieties (usually older types) can go by several different names. Typically the most common name is listed first, followed by the seed companies' own brand name.
On the other hand, several seed companies carry brand names that are exclusive varieties of another company. For example, Burpee BigBoy Hybrid tomatoes are found in many seed catalogs, though W. Atlee Burpee Co. is the proprietor of this famous brand-name seed.
Imported seed is another matter altogether.
Translations can be difficult, as in the case of Rotkappchen, a German red lettuce. Park Seed Co. ended up re-naming this variety as Redcap, while The Cook's Garden calls it Red Riding Hood!
Open-pollinated or hybrid:
Open-pollinated varieties are those whose seed comes from pollination that occurs naturally in the garden. This type of seed can be saved from year to year (with some restrictions) and you'll be assured of getting the same plant variety as the parent plant.
Hybrid varieties are identified in seed catalogs as hybrid or the symbol F1. These special seeds are created by using the pollen of one variety to fertilize the flowers of another variety of the same basic plant (two different cucumbers, for example).
This process is done to create new varieties which will hopefully produce the combined best characteristics from each variety, resulting in a new super-variety plant.
Hybrid seeds are usually more expensive and have unique properties that make the extra cost well worth it. I'll tell you something, though, when it comes to open-pollinated varieties: By continually saving the seeds from the strongest plants each year in your garden, you will gradually create your own strain that is welladapted to the conditions in your garden!
Days to maturity: This is probably one of the most important things to read about an individual seed variety, since it is essential to your garden plan.
There can be as much as 30 days difference in maturity dates with seeds of the same variety.
First you have to determine whether the number of days refers to seed that you sow directly in the garden (crops like spinach, lettuce, corn, that are generally not started indoors), or whether the number refers to the time it will take a 6week-old transplant to mature (crops like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, which are started indoors and transplanted out in the garden).
These vegetables will need a week or so to sprout, then another six weeks to grow to transplant size, and then the number of days listed in the catalog comes into play.
Only then will you have the real number that it takes a crop before the first harvest is ready.
Disease resistance: Where possible, opt for seeds that indicate a variety's ability to "resist" disease. Be careful with a term like "tolerance."
This means that the variety in question will probably not suffer from a disease as much as another variety that lacks tolerance altogether, but it can still get and suffer from the disease. Resistance, on the other hand, is a stronger word and means that this variety has been bred so that it will not get the disease at all.
Many heirlooms and other varieties that are sold in small quantities have never been tested for their disease resistance, so gardeners must rely upon the experience and advice of other gardeners in this regard.
Award winners: You'll notice seed catalogs will list certain varieties as AAS winners. Go after these types where possible! Since 1933, the All-American Selections organization has been picking winners annually from among the varieties offered to North American gardeners.
Seed varieties with this designation have been grown in trial-test gardens at a multitude of sites in various states throughout the country. Unpaid and unaffiliated judges rate the new varieties on flavor, yield, disease resistance and overall appearance.
Nearly all of their selections have withstood the passage of time, with such famous winners as Celebrity tomatoes and Green Comet broccoli.
Packet size: From catalog to catalog, what constitutes a "packet" of seeds can vary immensely.
To further confuse matters, some companies will tell you how many seeds are in an ounce of celery seeds and how much a packet of their seeds weighs and let you figure out how many seeds that is.
Another catalog will state how many seeds are contained per packet, with no mention of weight at all. It also helps to know which seeds are notoriously poor germinators, as well, since many seed companies will not add extra seed to account for low germination rates.
Font Resize
