Seeds for your garden

By Rennie Phillips

Always kind of hate to see all the garden frost in the fall and then brown up and die. Most of ours has frosted and froze. We have some chard and turnips still looking good and green but everything else is gone. Always hate it but yet kind of relieved. Tilling and planting and harvesting and fighting weeds has made for a long summer so I'm ready for a rest.

But now that winter is here I'm starting to get seed catalogs. Always enjoy getting them. Some I order from and some I just kind of thumb through. Those with pictures I look through for new ideas for next summer. I'm not even sure how many I get but there are a bunch of them. If you aren't getting any seed catalogs, all you need to do is Google "garden seed" and I'll bet you will be inundated with seed catalogs.

One thing we need to realize is that seed is not the same from catalog to catalog and on the internet. Many of these sources for seed will give the germination percentages so check them out. If the germination percentage is like 90 percent then one out of every ten seeds will fail. I was checking some new kinds of Japanese cucumbers and they were like $8 for 15 seeds. That's about 50 cents a seed. I sure don't want many to fail. But some germination rates are even lower. I got some seed last year that was down around 70 percent. If I'd known the percentage before ordering I wouldn't have bought from them.

Some seed will germinate but simply won't do anything worth a flip. It just won't grow and produce. My main cucumber that I always grow is Tasty Jade. Last summer's cucumber plants just didn't do good. This could have been me or the weather but it could have been the seed. I checked with my son who grows the same cucumber and his didn't do as good either. I believe it was the seed. This brings up the importance of communication between gardeners. With the ease of using facebook there is no excuse for not staying in touch.

So it is imperative to get good seed from a reputable seed company whether it be by mail or from a local seed supplier. When you buy in person check to make sure the seed is intended for the 2019 season and not last years. Do the same with mail order companies. If they don't list the date then ask. If they fail to tell you then forget them. They aren't worth your business.

Tomatoes are a mainstay in most everyone's garden. One thing that applies to all seed is don't believe all the hype printed about a specific plant. Check the reviews if there are any. Something that sounds like a pot of gold may not be worth a flip. I try new tomatoes every year but always seem to go back to the old time favorites simply for flavor. Some of my stand by tomato varieties are Big Beef, Celebrity, Stupice, Jet Star, Mr. Stripey, BHN 871, Kellog's and Dr. Wyche's. Celebrity is the only determinate in this bunch of seeds. A determinate will only get four or feet tall and will produce all their tomatoes in a two or three

week period. The rest are indeterminates and they will just keep growing till fall and will produce tomatoes up till frost. Ask your friends what they grow. Some grow old family favorite open pollinated varieties so maybe you can get some seed from them. If you grow multiple varieties like I do most likely they will cross pollinate and not be worth saving the seed.

With all likelihood you will have to spray your plants with a fungicide. This will need done weekly. Also about the first of June start spraying your plants with BT for the tomato worms. I spray the BT weekly. I hate to spray with a fungicide, but to have a successful tomato crop, you will almost have to spray with a fungicide.

Cucumbers are another mainstay. There are all kinds of varieties for canning and pickling and eating with some of these being burpless. Burpless varieties tend not to upset one's stomach like the regular varieties. I grow both. We grow small pickling varieties like Little Leaf or Northern Pickling and then Tasty Jade for eating. Tasty Jade is a burpless variety that grows to about 12 inches long. The pickling varieties are fairly cheap while the Tasty Jade are expensive. Check out your local seed stores. A really common variety is Marketmore or Straight Eight. If possible have a fence or something so that the cucumber can grow up.

Zucchini is another of our mainstay crops. We love fried and sauted zucchini. We grow Golden Glory and dunja as well as a couple others. I think the key to growing zucchini is start them indoors and then transplant as they just begin to bloom. The plant then will be fair sized before subject to pressure from the bugs. I dust with seven around the plant and even up on the main stems. I try not to get seven on the developing goodies. One other thing I do is to use a drip water system under the plant so I don't water the seven down into the root system. If you need help on a drip system for your garden email me.

Other crops that we grow are Yukon potatoes, Rainbow Chard, Texas 1015 Sweet onions, Jade green beans, Big Bertha and Orange King and Yellow Wonder sweet peppers, cabbage, broccoli, etc. With the addition of another high tunnel we will grow more this year in our high tunnels and less in our outside garden. Don't forget to get your soil tested.