All of my seeds have arrived! I always purchase seeds from a few awesome seed companies that have a great selection of certified organic seed. Like most years I will be growing some tried and true favorites along with some new seed varieties.
The seedlings I grow to sell to home gardeners are a wide range of vegetable and herb crops along with a few flowers. In addition to the standard favorites I’m excited to be adding some new selections like ground cherries, catnip, sage, echinacea, and broccolini.
Out in my field I just grow a few types of crops: cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, sweet peppers, hot peppers, gourds, pumpkins, winter squash, popcorn, and new this year sweet potatoes. Within each crop, I grow many varieties to have both a variety of flavors and the security of diversity (think of it as insurance against crop failure from disease, pests, or human error).
For cherry tomatoes I will be growing 8 different varieties, including copper beauty which is a new one for me. With heirloom tomatoes I will have 18 varieties, I always wanted to grow Radiator Charlie’s mortgage lifter and I finally got some seeds this year. With sweet peppers I will be focusing on 5 varieties of bell(ish) types, I’m very intrigued to see what violet sparkle will look like. The hot peppers are mainly for my husband, Juan Carlos’ hot sauce for Quarter Acre Farm EATS, he likes to use orange habaneros or something similar. So I will grow 9 hot pepper varieties including something a little different, the hot portugal.
Gourds are such a cool plant to grow with long vines and crazy shapes. I will grow 5 varieties including trying to grow the big african drum gourd. I didn’t have much success with pumpkins last year because of the vine borer pest so this year I am focusing on growing 5 different cucurbita moschata species that should fare better against this pest. For winter squash I will be growing 6 different varieties, and I can’t wait to see how autumn frost tastes. My popcorn last year was a crop failure because of poor germination after a heavy rain storm but I’m gonna try again this year with 3 varieties. For my first year growing sweet potatoes I am going to try 4 varieties and I am especially interested in seeing how the Eastern Shore heirloom, hayman produces.
I couldn’t wait to get my first seeds started this week. On the seeding schedule was collards, kale, green onions, storage onions, parsley, hot peppers, sweet peppers, cherry tomatoes, and heirloom tomatoes. All these tiny seeds are happily sitting in potting soil mix covered in vermiculite, working on germinating.
This time of year, seeds and the dream of what seeds will become is so exciting!