Seed Ordering Time

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Last year we ate St. Patrick’s day dinner on the deck, but not his year. It’s only warming up into the 30’s and piles of snow still remain. There is no warmup in sight, but hope still springs eternal.

I bought a new book by Niki Jabbour last week, The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener. Niki lives near Halifax, Nova Scotia and hosts a weekend gardening radio show there. Nova Scotia is a peninsula that extends from the south of Canada into the Atlantic and Halifax is really only a few hundred miles north of Chicago, so the growing seasons are similar.

Her book talks about methods that she and others have developed to get year-round yields from the garden by proper choice of plant varieties, cold-frames, mulches and other coverings. Based on my good results with Kale this year, I’m really encouraged and interested in increasing the harvesting season. This book explains the whole method.

So, based on information from the book, I’ve ordered my seeds for the year that will supplement the plants that I buy at the nursery and set out in the spring. Here’s the list so I don’t forget next year.

Terroir Seeds LLC – Underwood Gardens

  • Cucamelon/Mouse Melon – Miniature Cucumber
  • Summertime Lettuce
  • Evergreen Bunching Onion
  • True Lemon Cucumber

Johnny’s Selected Seeds

  • Fortex Pole Beans
  • Provider Bush Beans
  • Toscano Lacinato Kale
  • Magda Lebanese Summer Squash
  • Waltham Butternut Squash
  • Easter Egg Radishes
  • D’Avignon Long French Radish
  • Winter Density Bibb Lettuce
  • Spring Raab
  • Champion Collards
  • Altor Asian Greens
  • Mei Qing Pac Choi
  • Genovese Basil

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

  • Red Wonder Wild Strawberry
  • Strawberry Spinach
  • Perpetual Spinach
  • Pepper Cress
  • Arugula
  • Mache-Verte a Couer Plein 2 – Corn Salad
  • Mache-Verte D’Etampes – Corn Salad
  • Costata Romanesco Zucchini
  • Blue Curled Scotch Kale
  • Russian Red Kale
  • Lollo Rossa Lettuce
  • Japanese Giant Red Mustard

This is quite an ambitious list of vegetables,  but I’ll be planting less of each variety, planting some only for fall crops and inter-planting the spring vegetables between other later maturing crops. We’ll see how it works out.

I need to build a cold frame for the fall and possibly cover one of the raised beds to jump-start the tomatoes and peppers.