Tip of the Week

Gardening Step 1: Pick Organic Seeds

I can't wait to get in my garden. It's under a foot of snow at the moment, but that's no matter. The first weekend in March, every year, my husband and I burrow through the stash of catalogs we've piled in the kitchen and pull out the ingredients for the year's dream garden.

I feel pretty lucky to have this garden, all 40 x 30 square feet of it, which is just a couple dozen yards from a 100+ year- old farmhouse we have in the western Catskills. It produces an abundance of vegetables from early June through late September. There's no evidence proving that locally grown is better for you - "more nutritionally complete" - but no group of scientists are needed to inform me that my fresh-from-the-garden vegetables taste a whole lot better than those that have shipped thousands of miles from farm to fork. I also like that I haul my dinner greens to the kitchen myself - no car, not even a bag. According to Joan Gussow, Columbia University nutritionist, shipping a strawberry from California to New York requires 435 calories of fossil fuel but provides the eater with only 5 calories of nutrition.

Each year, we pledge to be better organized, to keep records of the seeds we order, take note of which had good yield, taste great, etc., but we don't. We also should keep notes on the pest problems we had and how we dealt with them. But again we don't. We really have only one pest problem - the potato beetle. Truth is "keep 'em guessing" - planting the potato plants in different parts of the garden each year - is the best way we have found to outsmart them. Submerging open cans of beer helps as well. I also find that even if they eat all the green leaves, leaving behind an unsightly plant, it's rare that we can't find a wonderful crop of delicious potatoes buried beneath. So I've learned not to care all that much about our unsightly potato plants; they were never that good-looking to begin with.

Our approach to gardening is a bit haphazard, but we have gotten better at picking seeds that are right for our region. Most catalogs offer a zone chart and other keys; Seeds of Change has the best charts among the catalogs we get, showing how much sun and water certain plants need and in which zone they are best suited.

Then there is the matter of which seeds to choose. We're not purists about it, but we do try to buy organic seeds whenever there is an option. Conventional seeds might have been harvested from chemically grown plants but they are also may have been treated with insecticides or fungicides prior to sale. We also try heirloom varieties that are from our region whenever we come across them. Even the major seed catalogs, such as Burbee, offer a number of organic and heirloom varieties.

If you are thinking of planting a kitchen garden this summer, or even a small potted garden on your terrace, check the links below for:

Companies offering organic and heirloom seeds

Tips to starting a vegetable garden

© The Green Guide, 2008

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