Kitchen Garden Part 2: Seed Selection

If you have a list of plants you want to grow and they have been sorted with the plants you most want at the top, the next step is a bit of research.

Take some time to match the seeds and plants you intend to buy with reality. Two very important variables are: Time you are willing to spend in the garden; Room required for the plants.

Other aspects to take into consideration are growing season requirements, dirt types and whether the plant is grown as a perennial or an annual where your garden lives.

Resources to help you decide if you really want to grow the plants you selected can be found in a variety of sources. Seed catalogs give a general overview of growing season and the real estate plants require, but they do not provide a good description of the time and effort required to grow a particular plant or variety of plant.

Two great sources are Organic Gardening: www.organicgardening.com/ and any of a number of books dedicated to vegetable gardening. One favorite is Heirloom Vegetable Gardening

Not only does this book provide a wealth of information on growing most kitchen garden vegetables, it also has details on how to prepare the garden, the effort required to grow particular varieties and recipes for many of the vegetables described.

This research may seem counter-productive, but in the long run, determining that you do not have time or real-estate to grow one of your favorite ingredients will save you time. After three years of failure due to lack of time, the strawberries are coming out of the garden. On the deck, the potted strawberries will continue to feed the chipmunks but the rows in the garden are to be used for plants that produce more. Why? Because strawberries require too much time to early in the season and too much time at the end of the season.

Good plants for beginners are tomatoes, lettuce, and if you have room, squash. All are very productive. Lettuce and squash are beautiful as well as delicious. Tomatoes fill the garden with a wonderful earthy aroma. Unfortunately squash, even the bush varieties, require room. Vining squash wind as far from the hill as 20 feet. The bush varieties spread three or four feet from edge to edge.

copyright 2006 Chromia Poetics