There's something about a fresh packet of seeds that feels filled with possibility for the upcoming growing season. And there are so many exciting varieties of vegetables, herbs, and even edible flowers to try out that paging through a seed catalog can make you feel like a kid in a candy story. However, it's easy to go a little overboard and end up with more seeds than you really need or ones that won't actually do well in your garden. You can avoid these pitfalls by keeping a few things in mind about which seeds are best for your needs and when to acquire them so you can start them at the right time.
1. Winter Is the Best Time to Buy Seeds
Many garden plants such as annual flowers, veggies, and herbs can be started from seeds while it's still cold and snowy outside. The trick, of course, is to sow them indoors and then transplant them into your garden once the soil has warmed up again in spring.
Cool-weather flower and vegetable plants, such as pansies, sweet peas, cabbage and broccoli, especially benefit from a jump-start indoors so they have a chance to produce a crop before the heat of summer shuts them down.
Warm-season plants, such a zinnias, marigolds, tomatoes and bell peppers, also can be started under grow lights and moved into the garden after your area's frost-free date so they'll produce an earlier and longer harvest for you. A grow light can be as simple as a fluorescent shop light hung just inches over your seed trays.
2. Consider Your Growing Space
When trying to decide which garden seeds to buy, figuring out how much room you have for growing them will help you narrow down the choices. For example, if you have a small garden or will only be growing in containers on a deck, compact varieties of plants is the way to go. Some vegetables and flowers are available in space-saving varieties (e.g. choosing seeds for determinate versus indeterminate tomatoes, or dwarf sunflowers instead of 10-foot-tall ones). Choose the best seed variety to maximize every inch of growing space you have.
3. Focus on Favorite Varieties
When picking out vegetable seeds to grow, think about the produce your family enjoys eating most. If you love spicy food, try growing a few hot pepper plants along with sweet bell peppers. Or maybe you want to be able to harvest salad greens for several weeks so a mesclun seed mix would be a better choice rather than a type of head lettuce.
4. Match Seeds to Your Climate
Garden plants vary in how long it takes for them to mature, so you'll want to choose seed selections best suited to your climate. Start by checking the "days to harvest" or "days to maturity" information on the seed packet and calculating if your growing season is sufficiently long enough to grow the flowers or vegetable you want to grow. If you live in a northern climate with a shorter growing season, focus on faster-maturing varieties of garden seeds. In the South, you'll have an easier time growing plants that require a longer season of hot weather.
5. Think About Pollinators
Many annual flowers such as African marigold, nasturtium, and sunflower are easy to grow from seeds sown directly in the garden after your last frost date. Not only do they add welcome color, they'll also help attract pollinators that can improve the yield from several types of crops such as squash. And some pollinating insects are also predators of plant pests, so they do double duty for your garden.
6. Keep Diseases at Bay
When shopping for garden seeds, look for disease-resistant varieties, especially if you've had problems in your garden previously. For example, when purchasing tomato seeds, look for varieties labeled with a VFN designation after their name. This means the variety is resistant to verticillium and fusarium wilt diseases that commonly plague tomatoes, as well as damage from nematodes in the soil.