Ordering Vegetable Seeds

With spring approaching, it’s time to order those vegetable seeds without delay. At this time of year the seed houses are going to be flooded with orders in the next little while. Getting your order in as early as possible ensures that you get first dibs on the vegetable seeds you want and need.

Your Vegetable Garden Plan should be complete, so you’ll know what you are planning to grow and how much that space will take. Check your existing seeds by doing a germination test, to ensure that the seeds are still viable. There’s nothing worse than planting rows of beans, only to have a couple of plants come up. Been there, done that.

When deciding which seeds to purchase, stick to seeds that are known performers. If you’ve kept garden journals, consulting the journals is a great first step. Your soil and growing conditions are unique, and a journal is the very best way to determine what does and does not work for you. Once you’ve ensured that you have an adequate supply of the old favorites, consult the vegetable gardening web sites for your locality and growing zones to see what other varieties work in your area.

It’s a great practice to try out several new types or breeds of vegetables for vegetable garden. Check out the new AAS winners in the vegetable category. Different types of seeds add novelty and interest to your vegetable garden, and you might just discover a new great performer for your particular growing conditions.

If you stay away from treated vegetable seeds like we do, make sure that you order sufficient quantities of seeds like beans, which can fail to germinate if growing conditions are too cold or wet. Crop failures happen to even the most experienced of growers, and you should expect the occasional failure in your own vegetable garden.

Purchase your seeds only from reputable seed houses. With vegetable seeds, expect to pay a fair price for disease-free good quality seed. The fastest way to get your seed orders into the seed houses is to place the order via their web sites. If ordering via the web makes you nervous, most seed companies support ordering by either Fax or snail mail as well.

And then comes the really hard part, waiting for that seed order to arrive!

Happy Gardening