You may have an idea of what you want to grow in terms of vegetables in your garden – say zucchini and tomatoes, for example. If you open the seed catalog or website to the page for zucchini you may find as many 18 to 25 different varieties to choose from, each with their own unique set of attributes in terms of shape, size, color, growing conditions, disease resistance, pollination type, and more. Move on to tomatoes, well now you’re talking hundreds of varieties in different classes from cherry to beefsteak to sauce types. And that’s just one supplier. It can be overwhelming, and we can fall victim to the dreaded analysis paralysis – spending so much time gathering information while trying to decide that we fail to decide.
Let’s take a little bit of the overwhelm out of the equation by defining what exactly it is we are looking for in each of the types of vegetable or fruits we want to grow before we even dive into the catalogs or walk into the garden center. If you’ve got a list of attributes you’re looking for ahead of time it makes it easier to make a decision about what will do well in your garden, meet your goals, and eliminate some of the distractions. Let's dig in.
Don't forget to answer the question of the month for January: How do you plan your garden each season?
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Home | The Buffalo Seed Company
All-America Selections | AAS Winners | Best New Plants
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This is positively farming media.
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Perusing through seed catalogs can be absolutely enjoyable, but
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it can also be very overwhelming if you let it.
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The same thing goes for the kiosks at the garden center or
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plant selection. At the nursery, you may have an
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idea of what you want to grow in terms of vegetables, say
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zucchini, tomatoes, carrots and lettuce, for example.
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And if you open the seed catalog or website to the page or pages,
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plural usually for zucchini, you may find as many as 18 to 25
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different varieties to choose from, each with their own unique
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set of attributes in terms of shape, size, color, growing
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conditions, disease resistance, pollination type, and all kinds
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of other stuff. Move on to tomatoes and well,
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now you're talking hundreds of varieties in different classes,
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from cherry to beef, steak to sauce types.
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And that's just one supplier. Flip through multiple catalogs
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or websites and holy cow, it can be overwhelming and we can fall
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victim to the dreaded analysis paralysis, Spending too much
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time gathering information while trying to decide that?
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We fail to decide, so let's take a little bit of the overwhelm
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out of the equation by defining what exactly it is we are
00:01:18
looking for in each of the types of vegetables or fruits that we
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want to grow before we even dive into the catalogs or walk into
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the garden center. If you've got a list of
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attributes you're looking for ahead of time, it makes it
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easier to make a decision about what will do well in your garden
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and meet your goals and eliminate some of the
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distractions. Plus, you'll better be able to
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make those impulse purchases when you go to the farmers
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market and a grower maybe has a really cool looking variety that
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you've never seen before. You'll know what to ask about
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the variety and know whether it will fit your garden plan based
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on those answers. And this goes not just for
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fruits and vegetables, but also herbs, flowers and other
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companions in the garden. Let's dig in.
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Hey, I'm Karen. I started gardening in a small
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corner of my suburban backyard and now 18 years later, I've got
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a degree in horticulture and operate a 40 acre market farm.
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I believe there is power in food and that everyone should know
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how to grow at least a little bit of their own.
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On this podcast I share evidence based techniques to help you
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plant, grow, harvest, and store all your family's favorites.
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Consider me your friend in the garden.
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So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
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just grow something. So don't forget to answer the
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question of the month for January.
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This is a new segment for this season and I'm already getting
00:02:51
some great responses from you, so keep them coming.
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You can use the link in the show notes to leave me a voice
00:02:56
message. Answer the Q&A in the episode
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description. If you're listening in Spotify,
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jump into the Just Grow Something Gardening Friends
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Facebook group and post it in there.
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Or you can send me an e-mail to Grow at Just
00:03:09
growsomethingpodcast.com. Or you can just respond to an
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e-mail if you're on the weekly e-mail list.
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The goal of these questions is to engage as a community and
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help each other out by passing these ideas back and forth.
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So the question of the month for January 2024 is how do you plan
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your garden each season? You have until January 31st to
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give me your answer and have it included in the February
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episode. And of course, as we're talking
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about gardening planning, that also means that I'll be opening
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up registration for my plan like a pro garden planning course
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here in a couple of weeks. If you'd like to be on the wait
00:03:48
list to get more information as soon as the course opens and
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maybe get access to a couple of bonuses in the process, just
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head to the courses page on my website and drop your info in
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the form there. Or you can use the link that I
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will leave in the show notes. So what are some of the
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considerations when choosing varieties of specific things we
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want to grow? Let's talk specifically about
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vegetables and small fruits here, more so annuals, but this
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could also apply to perennials too, especially when we're
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talking about fruit varieties. To a lesser extent, these
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guidelines would also apply to culinary herbs and florals,
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though some of the considerations for fruits and
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veggies may not apply to those. The first thing is to assess
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your space. Now, I'm not really talking
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about determining how many plants of each type will fit
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into your garden. That's kind of a whole other
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discussion. But just consider your overall
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space. If you're gardening in small
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containers, for instance, you should be looking for dwarf or
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compact varieties. If you don't have areas for
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trellises, then you'll be wanting things like Bush
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varieties of tomatoes or beans, or short varieties of peas.
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If your garden isn't located in full sun, you'll want to
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prioritize varieties that can tolerate shade.
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So think about the unique attributes to your overall
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gardening space and how that might affect the growth of your
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plants, and then look for varieties that fit those
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attributes. Now the second consideration is
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how many frost free days do you have to garden in?
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What are your average daytime and night time temperatures
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during those days? This information is going to
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help you determine if you need to grow faster maturing
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varieties of certain plants things maybe with a shorter
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number of days to maturity. If you garden in an area with a
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limited number of frost free days and daytime temperatures
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that don't get much above maybe 80 Fahrenheit or 26.6 Celsius,
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then you'll need very fast maturing varieties of things
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that really like the heat, like melons or okra.
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Conversely to that, if you live in an area that gets very little
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frost and temperatures warm up quickly, you'll need varieties
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of cool weather crops that mature more quickly so you can
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avoid the heat. So think about your average
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first and last frost dates and the average temperatures When
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you're looking at the days to maturity or temperature specific
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requirements for different varieties that you want to try.
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That can help to narrow down your options.
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The next thing to think about is what do you and your family like
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to eat the most? Is there a specific variety or
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varieties that fit those preferences?
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Especially if they're more expensive than other types to
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buy in the grocery store or at the farmers market, then you may
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want to really put those on your list.
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Heirloom tomatoes are a really good example of this.
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If your family lives off tomato sandwiches in the summertime and
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you prefer big heirloom beef steak types, you may decide to
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grow more of those varieties than, say, the standard round
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slicers, because the slicers are cheaper and easier to come by if
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you need to buy them. Or do you not eat fresh tomatoes
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a whole lot at all in the summer, but you make a lot of
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spaghetti sauce and salsa? You might choose paste varieties
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or Romas to grow rather than slicing, or cherry tomatoes that
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you can pick up only whenever you need them, rather than
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taking up space in your garden. Now, a major consideration for
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choosing A variety is the pest and disease pressure in your
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area. If you've gardened for a few
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years in your current space, you likely have encountered whatever
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routinely plagues your favorite crop in your area.
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Are your tomatoes susceptible to early blight?
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Do your melons get attacked by pickle worms?
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Think about what things you've battled in your garden in
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previous years and look for hybrid varieties of those plants
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that have some sort of resistance bred into them.
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Oftentimes, heirloom varieties are going to be more open to
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attack from diseases because they haven't been selectively
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bred to resist those diseases. So if you've had bad luck in the
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past with an heirloom type of squash, for example, getting
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really bad powdery mildew, then maybe look for a newer variety
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that has resistance to that. It's no fun spending so much
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time trying to grow something only to have it taken out by a
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specific pest or disease when there are so many options out
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there that can help you sort of work around that problem.
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Now Speaking of heirloom versus hybrid, that's consideration #5.
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Do you want to save your own seeds, or do you have some other
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reason for wanting to grow open pollinated varieties?
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Remember, if you want to save seeds for the next season,
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you're gonna have to grow a variety that is not an F1
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hybrid. An F1 hybrid is the first
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generation of offspring from 2 distinctly different parent
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plants. The idea is that the offspring
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takes the best genetics from the parents and combines it into one
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plant, making it better in some way or another than the parent
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plants were. Now the great thing about F1
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hybrids is that they can be more resistant to diseases in certain
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paths, or they can be more drought tolerant or shade
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tolerant depending on what they've been bred for.
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They can display what we call hybrid vigor, which means a
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stronger growth habit than either parent had on their own,
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and they can often be more consistent in terms of shape,
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size, flavor and production. Those can all be really great
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benefits. The downside to this is if you
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save the seeds from these F1 hybrids, even if they're
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pollinated with another of the same variety or they are self
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pollinated, the resulting offspring, which is known as the
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F2 generation, can vary wildly from not just each other but
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also from their F1 parents. So the variety at the F1 stage
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is not considered to be stable. Open pollinated varieties on the
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other hand are stable and if they are pollinated by other
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plants of the same variety or they are self pollinated, their
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offspring will be very similar to the original.
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The drawback to that though is that oftentimes open pollinated
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varieties aren't considered to be improved.
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This means they may look and taste great, but that look and
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flavor likely won't be uniform to each other even on the same
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plant, and they will have fewer of those improved traits like
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disease resistance or drought, you know, tolerance or those
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other types of desirable traits. The most typical example I can
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give you of this is like of heirloom tomato varieties.
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If you take something like a Cherokee purple tomato, which
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was one of my favorites, it's got great flavor and if you save
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the seeds, the resulting plants, so long as it didn't cross
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pollinate with something else, will be the same as the one you
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saved it from. But every tomato on that plant
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is going to be different from the next.
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They are very prone to cat facing.
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They are very prone to cracking and they have very little in the
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way of disease resistance. But if you love the flavor of
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Cherokee Purple, but you want something that's more
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predictable in terms of growth and it's also open pollinated,
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then you can look at the variety called carbon.
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It's another purple type tomato. It has the same great smoky
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flavor as the Cherokee Purple, but way more consistent in size,
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shape, and production. So when choosing varieties to
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grow in your garden, understanding what you want from
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your plants can also help you narrow down the list of
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contenders a little bit. Now, right alongside choosing
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between open pollinated varieties and hybrids is
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considering what grows well in your area.
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When we talked about choosing a seed supplier last week, I
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mentioned a local company here called Buffalo Seed Company.
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They specialize in bio regionally adapted seeds.
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What does that mean? They take seeds from around the
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world and they use climate modeling to identify seeds that
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are collected from locations that match the climate in our
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region. And then they grow those seeds
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in eastern Kansas and western Missouri on their farm and
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through a network of other growers in the area.
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And then they collect the seeds from those plants from the
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specimens that grew the best without any supplemental
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irrigation. This means that those seeds are
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well suited for growing in this region, better so than seeds
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that would be shipped in from somewhere else and just
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immediately planted. If you can find varieties like
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this that are bio regionally adapted or that were native to
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your area or areas similar to yours, you may decide that these
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should be first on your list to select.
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This is part of the reason why the West Coast of the US,
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specifically Northern California along the coast, can grow crops
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that others can't. They have a climate very similar
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to the Mediterranean. So things that are native or
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originally came from the Mediterranean.
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You know, things like grapes do phenomenally well there.
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They are bio regionally adapted. So if you live somewhere that is
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hot and dry most of the time, look for varieties that
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originated in or were bred specifically for hot and dry
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climates. Same thing goes for hot and
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humid areas or cool and damp areas.
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Look for things that are regionally adapted to where you
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are gardening now. Consideration #7 is to repeat
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your top performers. If you've gardened before, you
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likely have had one or two things in your garden that just
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did phenomenally well for you. What was the variety of that?
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Repeat that one. Stick with that one.
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If you're trying a new type of fruit or vegetable in the garden
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and you don't have any kind of historical data to go on, then
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get recommendations for varieties from local sources,
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garden clubs, your local Master Gardeners group, your local
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university Extension Service. For us, the University of
00:14:44
Missouri has a planting guide that not only lists the best
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dates to plant vegetables, but also gives a list of the
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suggested varieties that have done well in trials at the
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university or historically with local growers.
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So check to see if your local university has a list like that,
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or has trials that they have done on different crops that you
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can use as a guide for what does well in your area.
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Use other local gardeners as a resource for suggestions in what
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varieties have done well for them, especially when you're
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dealing with plant disease and varying dates to maturity.
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Tip #8. If you were in North America,
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check out All American Selections.
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So All American Selections, or AAS, was founded in 1932.
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It is an independent, nonprofit organization that tests new,
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never before sold varieties specifically for home gardeners.
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So they do a full season of anonymous trials by volunteer
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horticultural professionals, and the top garden performers are
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given the AAS Winner Award for superior performance.
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So there's three different types of awards.
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There's four different categories of trials.
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So there's the AAS Gold Medal award, which they only give out
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once or twice a decade, and that is reserved for like significant
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breeding breakthroughs. The standard award is the AAS
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national winner. And so that's going to recognize
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an ornamental or an edible for significant breeding
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achievements, things that are proven to demonstrate really
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superior garden performance as compared to others that are like
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it on the market. So the judges are asked to
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evaluate on things like earliness, taste, disease,
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resistance, the uniqueness, It all depends on what species it
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is that they're judging. And then there is also the AAS
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regional winner. This one is given to varieties
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that maybe didn't do well in all regions, but they did show
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specific performance to be really, really good in just a
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few specific regions of North America.
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So those different awards are given in four categories.
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Ornamentals from seed, ornamentals from vegetative
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cuttings, edibles, which is both fruits and vegetables from seed.
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And then they added herbaceous perennials in 2018.
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The AAS does not actually advertise their award winners.
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They kind of rely on like consumer magazines and
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newspapers, garden and lifestyle blogs, Garden Club bulletins and
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your Cooperative Extension agents to introduce the AAS
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winners to home gardeners. But you can also go to their
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website and download a complete list of every winner since 1932.
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It's all in an Excel spreadsheet.
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I will leave a link to their website in the show notes and
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the plant breeders themselves and the plant catalogs will
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usually mark a variety as an AAS winner because it is kind of a
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big deal. So if you see the AAS winner
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seal on a variety in a catalog or on a plant tag in the garden
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center, you know that it has been, as their tagline says,
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tested nationally and proven locally.
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Now the 9th consideration for variety selection would be the
00:18:13
pricing and quantity available. Sometimes you can read the
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description on a variety and it seems like a fantastic plant
00:18:21
that you would like to try, but the price point is completely
00:18:25
out of your budget. I mentioned this last week when
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I was looking at that new bell pepper variety.
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Or maybe it wasn't last week. It might have been at the end of
00:18:31
last season. Anyway, as much as I'd like to
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give it a shot, I just can't justify the cost of that bell
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pepper. This can happen with just about
00:18:40
any new variety. There is a lot of time and
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effort that goes into plant breeding, and if something has
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solved a particularly difficult problem, it likely took more
00:18:50
time to get to that solution, which of course means more
00:18:52
expense to recoup. The flip side of this is seeds
00:18:56
that may only come in larger quantity, possibly way more than
00:19:01
what you might need. Yes, most seeds will survive
00:19:06
beyond just one season, but not everybody is willing to hang on
00:19:09
to seeds from year to year, and some seeds really are only
00:19:11
viable for a short time. So if the variety you're
00:19:14
eyeballing only comes in a bulk package, that may be a reason to
00:19:18
either choose something else or see if you have a gardening
00:19:22
friend that might want to grow the same variety.
00:19:25
Usually though, in most cases it's the the limiting factor is
00:19:28
the price. If it's too expensive for my
00:19:30
taste, I just mark it to revisit the next season because often
00:19:34
times the price will go down after it's been out on the
00:19:38
market for a year or two. And then the final consideration
00:19:42
for deciding on a variety is who are you gardening with or for?
00:19:47
Are you going to have small children in the garden with you?
00:19:51
If so, think about growing some dwarf or miniature varieties.
00:19:55
Cherry tomatoes are enticing to little hands, miniature
00:19:58
cucumbers, Parisian carrots, brightly colored varieties of
00:20:03
anything that usually keeps their interest, at least for a
00:20:05
little while. And the more that they have a
00:20:08
hand in the garden, the more likely they are to eat the
00:20:10
things that come out of it, in my experience.
00:20:13
If you're gardening and you're bringing a box to your elderly
00:20:16
neighbors each week, maybe they have a specific variety that
00:20:21
reminds them of gardening with their parent or their
00:20:23
grandparent. Whether it's a type of vegetable
00:20:25
or it's a type of flower, choose one to grow that they'll be
00:20:29
excited to receive. And maybe you're gardening just
00:20:32
for yourself and you just want to try something new, something
00:20:35
fun or different that you've not grown before.
00:20:39
Go for it. This doesn't all have to be so
00:20:41
analytical. You should absolutely grow
00:20:44
something just for the fun of it.
00:20:46
I love growing multi colored carrots, even though they never
00:20:50
produce as much as my standard orange ones.
00:20:53
I like purple kohlrabi and yellow cauliflower because they
00:20:58
add interest in the garden and it's not just the same old, same
00:21:01
old. They don't taste any different,
00:21:03
and they don't grow as well most of the times, but they're just
00:21:06
fun. So don't be afraid to go to the
00:21:09
garden center or the farmers market and check out the
00:21:11
varieties that they have available and pick out something
00:21:14
new and different at the spur of the moment.
00:21:22
So that's 10 things to consider when choosing the plant
00:21:25
varieties that you'll put in your garden.
00:21:26
There are, of course, other things you could be considering
00:21:29
in your own personal space that are specific to you and your
00:21:32
style of gardening. But assessing your space?
00:21:35
Knowing the number of frost free days and your growing
00:21:38
conditions, What you and your family eat the most?
00:21:42
Your pest and disease pressures. Deciding between open pollinated
00:21:46
and hybrid varieties? Considering regionally adapted
00:21:50
seeds and your top performers from previous years?
00:21:53
Looking for all American selections, winners, pricing and
00:21:57
quantity, and who you are gardening for are all general
00:22:00
considerations for choosing the best varieties for your garden
00:22:04
in any given season. Check out those plant
00:22:07
descriptions and make your best educated guess and avoid the
00:22:11
analysis paralysis that comes with seed catalog overload.
00:22:15
Until next time, my gardening friends.
00:22:17
Keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk again
00:22:19
soon. Thanks for listening to another
00:22:21
episode of the Just Grow Something podcast.
00:22:23
For more information about today's topic and to find all
00:22:26
the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show, go
00:22:29
to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. Until next time, my gardening
00:22:33
friends keep learning and keep growing.