Good Morning Fellow Saturday Morning Gardeners, regulars and new to the SMGB! It’s January in New York State. Brrrrrr…. The ground is frozen. There’s a shortage of daylight. No planting, yet. I content myself with my house plants and Paperwhite Narcissus and Amaryllis that are sprouting. So, I’m settled down with a nice cup of Harney’s Paris black tea (tastes of vanilla and earl grey) to create my vegetable seed wish list for 2021 from my favorite seed companies.
First, a little family history (I have shared some of this in comments in other SMGB diaries.). I remember my father, who grew up on a small family farm in the NYS Finger Lakes Region, relaxing in his padded rocking chair next to the fireplace to browse the seed catalogues of his day. He would set up sprouting flats on his basement work tables by east facing windows with overhead fluorescents adding to the available light. When planting time arrived, he rototilled the garden plot. Plenty of horse and sheep manure could be had for free from farms up the road. The ditches along the roads needed periodic clearing and the county workers would dump the rich black soil in our yard if my father was home at the time they came by.
Dad would set up his rows using two sticks with a heavy string attached keeping things nice and straight. I have seen this on old WWII victory garden videos and here I thought he invented that! Out came a nifty hand plow (maybe a family garden heirloom) that would dig a nice seed trench and till the soil, too. It was a lot like the newer one in this video. Hand Tiller/Plow I remember how beautiful his rows of vegetables looked all in perfectly straight rows. My rows? Well, I have to work on that. 🤣 He did set up some tripods of poles for some kind of beans. And he didn’t need to fence in the vegetables! Only one time did I see a marauding woodchuck heading in that direction. That was it. No deer problem even in the middle of a rural area. However, here in my city…..we had a stand off one day in October as this cute but hungry doe was heading towards the garden (fenced in so no free meal). I felt so bad when she showed up one night looking so sadly at me when I walked out to the compost pile, that I tossed her all the apple peels I had left from making a pie. I know. I shouldn’t feed ‘em.
After the above preparation, into dad’s garden went lots of tomatoes, green beans, peas, green peppers, small and large onions, garlic, beets, carrots, potatoes, pickling cucumbers, leaf lettuce and strawberries. I’m sure I’m forgetting something! My mom canned the tomatoes for soup and pasta sauce. She later froze a good deal of the green beans and peas. I am guessing we kids were more likely to eat the frozen peas given the more palatable color. She made two kinds of pickles and pickled beets. We had potatoes, carrots, and garlic a good ways into the fall, maybe to Thanksgiving. Looking back, dad’s garden sure helped economically. I think he would be astounded at the variety of seed catalogues available. And especially astounded by all vegetable choices. The heirloom tomatoes and the various lettuces, for example. He loved his fresh leaf lettuce with a little bit of vinegar and sugar sprinkled on. I googled that and, sure enough, people still serve it that way….Lettuce Salad I assume this is how my dad’s family made their salads. I wonder what he would select from all the different kinds and colors available now?
Back to current reality: before making seed selections, I have to take into consideration the growing conditions I’m dealing with: small space, a certain amount of shade, soil with too much clay, and unpredictable humidity, and sometimes an unpredictable growing season. Lately, it’s been unpredictable drought, too. I’m working on amending the soil with compost (I have a pile plus I buy premade.) and Miracle-Gro for vegetables. Some coarse builder’s sand is also recommended for clay loaded soil.
It’s a small space so I lean towards planting vegetables that can grow close together with less likelihood of encouraging a plant disease. For example, tomatoes and cucumbers just don’t work well because of fungus issues. I’ve come to the conclusion that there aren’t enough hours of sun for those to dry out properly. The miniature tomatoes like Sungold are the only ones that do well for some reason. There are more resistant varieties of tomatoes and cukes but, hey, I’m an “instant gratification” from the garden person. There’s something to be said, too, for not fighting your conditions. I had a forestry school educated neighbor years ago who said you just can’t always fight nature (we were discussing my frustrations with my lawn — that could be a whole other diary). I’ve come to the conclusion that the brassica family (collards, kale, brussels sprouts, etc.), green beans, salad greens, and chards do the best. But I’m always on the lookout for something outside of those plant families. With more experience, I am sure I will expand my plantings. I did have a neighbor offer me part of their nearby community garden plot. So, expansion is a possibility in 2021!
My two favorite seed providers are below. The company web sites are loaded with helpful information. You can order a free catalogue, too. I know there are many more providers so please post your favorites in the comments!
Close to my geographic area is High Mowing Seeds in Vermont. I have had great luck with them several years running. What’s nice is that garden stores and my local food cooperative offer large display racks of a selection of their vegetable, herb, and plant seeds. If I decide I have room, I can run over to my nearby food cooperative and grab a package of something. Instant gratification! The catalogue has many additional choices.
HMS Wish List: My repeat vegetables from High Mowing will be their Lacinto Kale and the Maxibel Haricot Vert Green Beans. Other possible choices/additions:
Improved Rainbow Blend Chard These multi-colored chards add nice color to the garden. Chard is wonderful sautéed in olive oil with collards and/or kale plus some garlic, onions or both. It can be picked when small for salads.
Vivid Choi Pak Choi HMS has lots of interesting Asian greens to choose from that are related to the brassica family. It’s described as cold hardy with a long growing season and that meets one of my planting criteria. I tried another kind of mini pak choi a couple years ago and it did well, tasted great, and was fun to watch grow. I think you might have some success planting this in a large container.
Arugula! Grows like crazy in my not so great soil and is quite tolerant to both heat and cold according to its description. HMS has lots of choices and I will probably grow a mix of several. Arugulas are so tasty if you like a bitter, spicy green. Some have quite the bite. Here’s one I have had success with….Astro Arugula
This radish green that is new to me sounds like it will be fine fit for my growing conditions….Hong Vit It grows quite upright which is great for a small space. I think it and Arugula would look nice grown in containers, too.
And this wonderful, healthy looking salad Kale mix...Ironman Kale Salad Mix
Lastly, for now, at least, something small from the onion family. I thought this bunching onion would be fun to try….Parade Bunching Onion. There are some other choices in this category, including a small leek that I can try, too.
My other favorite catalogue is the irresistible Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri. I just ordered the print catalogue! They have some really, really fun offerings. Their website says their seeds are guaranteed for two years so it won’t be a waste if I buy something and wait until 2022 to plant.
True to what they say about their seeds being good for two years, I had excellent success growing their Morris Heading Collards. The 2019 leftover seeds that I planted in summer 2020 grew like crazy. I think they bolted from the heat wave we had around July (we had a drought, too) so they didn’t “head” like in the photo, but they were still quite compact plants in the garden. I sprouted them in containers and planted them a bit close to each other but they did just fine. They survived snow and a night time temperature down to 20 degrees! (I checked the survivable low temperature range online.) I only let that happen once before I picked the rest right before Thanksgiving. Family and friends I shared with gave them a big stamp of approval for taste. too.
Here’s the row of Baker Creek Morris Heading Collards in September 2020 with a few High Mowing Seeds Lacinto Kale plants mixed in. (Ignore those weeds!!!)
High Mowing Seeds Lacinto Kale and Maxibel Haricot Vert Green Beans
My Baker Creek wish list (includes the collards):
Another mini onion...Bunching Onion I might try one each from BC and HMS. Looks like I might go onion crazy this summer especially if I can use the extra plot space in the community garden nearby.
Perhaps a Chinese Broccoli? Yod Fah The description says easy to grow and that all the parts of the plant are tasty! What’s not to like?
And one more....Cosmic Crimson Mix Lettuce More color in the garden since I grow so much that’s all green.
I may have to make substitutions as one never knows how fast an item might go out of stock. But, there is so much to choose from that it’s hard to be disappointed. And gardening is supposed to be fun, right? I wish I had photos of my dad’s gardens but we never thought to take any. I think he maybe enjoyed more than anything else he did. I appreciate his time and talent spent working the soil. I didn’t back then, I’m sad to say. I hated picking green beans and peas! And trying to get the strawberries before the Robins ate a big hole in one side! Now, it’s such a pleasure to harvest fresh produce for a meal. Somewhere in Gardening Heaven, he is laughing. I’ll add more composted manure and try to make my rows a lot straighter this year, dad! I promise. 💚