Time to Plan That Summer Vegetable Garden

From Bill:

Whether you’re about to embark on your first vegetable garden or have many years of experience, it’s time to be thinking about where and what to plant this year.

No matter how much you know, there’s always more to learn about vegetable gardening and there are lots of books out there to advance your knowledge. On a recent visit to the book store I found a whole wall of books about vegetable gardening, and I’ve been reading on the subject since the 1970s.

There are two contemporary books I can highly recommend: Golden Gate Gardening — A Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California by Pam Pierce, Sasquatch Books, and
The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food by Tanya L. K. Denckla, Storey Books. 

Both of these books provide a good reference for growing specific vegetables and vegetable gardening in general. Golden Gate Gardening also provides excellent detail on  growing vegetables specifically in our area. I think almost any gardener can learn from reading the first part of this book. Although I’ve found a lot of information on growing vegetables on the Internet, much of it is not applicable to our area or to the home gardener.  These books are a good place to start before looking for nuances of information online.

And if you’re going to start gardening, it’s time to be thinking about seeds — I already have 15 six-packs of seeds planted and sprouting on my germinating heating pads. The first sprouts were up after only a week, so I’ve turned on the lights.

I have been using commercial planting mix as the medium for starting my seeds, but it hasn’t been entirely satisfactory in the past, so I’ve sent away for some germinating mix to try for the first time. There are recipes for preparing your own germinating mix but you need to have all the resources available. 

As for where to get seeds, you can start by hitting the local garden center and checking out their seed racks. However, to get a sense of possibilities, seed catalogs are a great source. You can go on-line and search for seeds from the various supplier,s but I think it’s easier and more fun to go through the hard copies. Here are a few we suggest:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, www.rareseeds.com, 1-417-924-8917 (the most beautiful vegetables you’ll ever see…)

Territorial Seed Company, www.territorialseed.com or 1-800-626-0866

Seeds of Change, http://www.seedsofchange.com/ or 1-888-762-7333

Burpee, http://www.burpee.com/ or 1-800-888-1447

Additional Seed Sources

Here are some additional sources for seed sources. I have not looked to see whether each has a hard copy catalog.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds
1-877-564-6697
http://www.johnnyseeds.com

Park’s Seeds
1-800-845-3369
http://www.parkseed.com

Pinetree Garden Seeds
1-888-52-seeds
http://www.superseeds.com

Stokes Seeds Inc.
1-888-396-9238
http://www.stokeseeds.com
(This one is supposed to have the largest selection of seeds.)

Seeds of Change
1-888-762-7333
www.seedsofchange.com
(This one is organic.)