Seeds for 2010

A few days ago I went through the long and arduous process of picking out all my seeds for 2010. I say long and arduous since despite having been all organized and printing out a list of seeds I was going to buy... there is just... just so many... to choose from! It always takes me forever to make up my mind!

There is a basic principal I follow... 90% of my seeds are old stand-bys, plants that I grow every year and the ones I cannot do without. The other 10% are experimental in some way. For instance: I grow string beans every year, but this year I will grow both pole and bush varieties to help me be more accustomed to the pole kind (as I have more familiarity to growing bush types). There are a few things I will just not try again this year, such as watermelon and cantaloupe... maybe its the climate here but ... very disappointing and fruitless- literally! Maybe some other year, but this year in their place will be vegetables I have never tried to grow before... notably: eggplant, tomatillos and radicchio.

Part of the fun thing about gardening is there is so much flexibility to try new things and every year is different. If your willing to try new things you will not only expand your knowledge of growing these plants but you will also learn how to eat them. Who doesn't need to diversify the vegetables in their diet?

So after about $60, this years' garden is pretty much decided upon. I'll have to plan out where to grow them all of course as I will have about 40 different types of plants to contend with now. This garden is all vegetables as usual, but a few flowers make their way in for color and their practical purpose in the whole scheme of things. One of the first things I do when I come home with all my shiny new seed packets is write them all down in my handy garden log... a spiral binder devoted to recording everything to do with the garden, weather and other observations(ex: when did this pest first appear or what trees are in bloom etc). Recorded are: price, vegetable, its variety, the seed company and its weight. Keeping a written record like this will help you compare information from year to year. Did seed prices go up? What variety exactly where those carrots we grew that worked out so well? How many packets of spinach were used? All questions simply answered by taking a look are your seed list record.