I can’t afford what I want. Waaah. Anyway, I’m going to need your help. Following (broken down for the sake of your poor brain) is a list of seeds I’d like. Most of them came from the BC Seed Security Project partners. I can’t buy these all, and I know I can’t grow them all this year. Tell me what I shouldn’t grow – whether that’s because you’ve grown it and it was a difficult plant, or I won’t eat it, or there’s a better variety out there or because I have 16 other versions of it on my list. Be cruel, I need it.
Without further ado:
Root Vegetables:
- Dragon Carrot
- Long Orange Improved Carrot
- Nantes Coreless Carrot
- Heirloom Celeriac
- Culinary Bulb Fennel
- Garlic
- Bedfordshire Champion Onion
- Stuttgarter Onion
- Early Wonder Beets
- Winterkeeper Beets
- Harris Parsnip
- Rutabaga
- New Siegfried Frost Leek
- Autumn Giant Leek
Salad Greens (using this phrase somewhat inaccurately):
- Asian Greens
- Rainbow Chard
- Winterblend Mesclun Mix
- New Endive Tres Fin Mache
- 3 Variety Mix Kale
- 20 Lettuce Blend
- Mix Mustard Greens
- Giant Winter Spinach
- Perpetual Spinach
Tomatoes (they need their own category):
- Black Plum (paste, cherry)
- Ailsa Craig
- Black from Tula
- Cosmonaut Volkov
- German Red Strawberry
- Japanese Black Trifle
- King Umberto
- Legend
- Lisa King
- Zapotec
- Aurega
- Mountain Princess
- This is getting ridiculous
- Blond Kopfchen (cherry)
- Gardener’s Delight (cherry)
- Obeyeyie
- Poire Rouge Franchy (paste)
- Ghost Cherry (cherry)
- Sophie’s Choice
- Disease Resistant Mix (lovely name that)
All the other Veggies:
- Asparagus
- Green Bush Beans
- Scarlet Runner Beans
- Buerre de Rocquencourt Bush Beans
- Broccoli Mix
- Red Acre Cabbage
- New January King Cabbage
- Old Fashion Sweetcorn
- Pickling Cucumbers
- Japanese Baby Green Cucumbers
- Sugar Snap Peas
- Dwarf Snap Peas
- Acorn Squash
- Small Sugar Pumpkin
- Purple Sprouting Broccoli (winter)
Fruit:
- Cape Gooseberries
- Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon
- Alpine (Red) Strawberries
Culinary Herbs:
- Mint
- Thyme
- Parsley
- Chervil
- Chives
- Cilantro
- Dill
- Garlic Chives
- Green Onion
- Lovage
- Oregano
Teas:
- Elderberry
- Lemon bergamot
- chamomile
- Catnip
Medicinal Herbs:
- Echinacea
- Evening Primrose
- St. John’s Wort
- Feverfew
- Valerian
Flowers (pest control etc):
- sunflower mix
- celendula mix
- bee balm mix
- jewel mix nasturtium
So the seeds I couldn’t find right away:
- Zucchini
- Jerusalem Artichoke
- Blueberries
- Blackberries
- Blackcurrants
- Brussel Sprouts
So obviously with these packages averaging $3 each I can’t buy that whole list. The medicinal and tea herbs will be the first to go. There are plenty of culinary herbs in there I can cut too, and of course the list of tomatoes is embarrassingly long. So, make your recommendations of what to lose and I’ll listen!
Also, I would love to do a trade if anyone else is buying seeds right now and don’t need their entire package.
Wee personally, I would break the categories down by season and length of growing time.
i.e. if you get radishes, then by the time carrort are done one crop you could have tried two different types of radish.
if you choose things that all want to be grown in August, well then your June and September are sad months.
Also, I don’t know what your light and space requirements are, but I like to grow one tall thing above one wide thing. i.e. tomatos growing over flowers. That way I’m maximizing space.
So that’s how I’d categorize your list and then cull the list based on things that don’t fit it.
Also, if the seed last more than one season or produce seeds that I can keep, then I’d be more likely to choose those. i.e. Rosemary over dill, as rosemary can survive the winter. lavender over mint..
sorry about the essay!!!
Hey Shawna! I have definitely paid attention to getting in some September through November harvests, and there are a couple of winter crops there too. I also plan to stagger my sowing a bit with most of the crops. I still have too many though HA!
As for the tomatoes I’m looking for 2 types of cherry minimum, as my kids will eat ALL of them. Then I want some bigger ones for sandwiches and some paste and beefsteaks for canning. That still leaves me with about 6000 too many seeds…
oh! also, I love tomatoes and eat too many of them, so I always get the variety with the lowest acid content i.e. the yellow ones.
Although this year I discovered a recipe for roasting tomatos to easily make a smokey tomato sauce and Romas work best for it (less juicy, more meaty so less cooking), so next year I will grow the cherry sized yellow ones for eating and a roma type for making the sauce.
http://www.talkoftomatoes.com/2006/11/26/slow-roasted-romas/
I also vaguely wonder if I solar dehydrator would work, but then I wouldn’t get the smokey garlic to blend in with the tomatoes.
If you want to can tomatoes, go with Roma. They have less water and you will get a better product. I would pick one decent eating tomato, a cherry and a Roma for canning. We experimented with a pile of heirloom tomato seeds over the years and never had a pile of success. Most of them couldn’t make Toronto’s growing season, it seemed like.
Asparagus are a signficant time committment, like 3 years before they start to produce fruit).
I would also look at how much room you have. Beans, peas and cucumbers can be grown upward (or downward) off of fencing or trrestles and save tons fo ground space.
I personally can;t find a good chard recipe of any sort, but kale is yummy.
Leeks and onions (scallions (green onions) and bulb onions)
And how often do you eat fennel now?
I would rationalize with looking at your current weekly diet and pick the vegetables that you use most often. Then add a few fun extras and call it a day.
Johnna
Hey Johnna,
I know what you mean about heirloom tomatoes. The only reason I think they’re possibly going to work here is that they’ll be in a 7′ high polytunnel (along with the cukes). Choosing one tomatoes per category is probably more realistic than two.
I know asparagus is long term, but it does well in our climate. It’s supposedly pretty high-producing, so I was hoping it would be worth the investment…. It should probably go in next year when I’m more sure of how the garden is working out.
Chard is good wherever kale is good – but not too much with my family LOL I need to train them in the goodness of both.
I eat fennel often, I LOVE it.
nix the blackberries. they grow everywhere you walk around here, for free. no need for the spacious thorns at home.
blueberries also take up lots of room and you can get organic at an awesome u-pick in richmond for $1/lb. my kids are currently living off them. waste of space at home.
chives AND garlic chives? probably don’t need both. i like chives myself, with real garlic on the side.
corn. from what i understand you need to grow a lot of it to pollinate properly. and each stock grows one single cob. again, lots of space for little food, i’d leave it to country folk. though i know you can’t beat the super fresh corn that’s picked as the water is coming to a boil on the stove. still…
chard. yes. it’s food from the heavens, and the kids love it. well, my kids do. and it looks pretty. love the dual purpose stuff.
my 2 cents.
Too true about the blackberries – that’s an easy cut. I need you contact for the cheap blueberries, because I’ve never paid less than $3-4 a pound for organic – but I’ve never done u-pick.
I knew I was going to have to give up the garlic chives. WAAAHHHHHH…..
The corn that i listed both grow two ears to a stalk. I wasn’t sure how much room stalks take up – I might do some more research into that.
Thanks Christine!