Ordering Seeds
Seed Catalogs, Market Garden Map, and Notes
With the start of the new year, my thoughts return to the Posh Market Garden. Our vegetable catalogs have arrived, and I’ve ordered three new flower catalogs specific to cutting gardens. I’ve learned a lot my first year as a market gardener and hope to put that knowledge to use as I start this new year. Last fall Andy and I moved a couple of beds over, so we had better spacing, and I redrew the vegetable garden on graph paper, labeled each bed, rows one – seven and laminated the sheet. Now with each year’s vegetable rotation, I can use a dry erase marker and not have to redraw the layout!
When Andy and I ordered our first set of seeds we made a list of all the vegetables and flowers we wanted to grow and ordered everything, not thinking about quantities or if it would sell, we just assumed it would! This summer our big lesson was, that may of the seeds we bought and veggies we grew, so did a lot of other farmers and we found ourselves with a surplus. Even with our late start due to our stupid naivety as farmers, we successfully grew everything we planted, and we (I) planted every single seedling we started! This year, we’ve narrowed down our list of veggies and put them into two categories, one for the Market Garden and one for ourselves. The criteria for the Market Garden focuses on growing what people will buy, and what other farmers are not growing and what is unique to us. For example, because we grow lemon cucumbers, Blaine’s farm store will not grow them. White Currant Tomatoes is an example of what is unique. When Jamie from Blaine’s was visiting, she tried these tasty little tomatoes and said if we grew them, they would sell them! The last things on our criteria list had to do with perennial vegetables and low maintenance veggies. Row one in the veggie patch will be dedicated to Asparagus, green, purple and white. This delightful vegetable is a perennial which means once you plant it, you don’t have to do it again. It is a cut and come again vegetable. It also takes three years to get established. So, once I have the asparagus planted, all I will really need to do for the next two to three years is to weed the area. Row five will be devoted to spring garlic, which I planted this past fall, as well as shallots and leeks. The latter two are not harvested until the fall and Blaine’s said they would sell it if we grow it. The garlic should be ready in June and once we have harvested that I will plant Swiss Chards in its place. Chards can be sown directly into the grown once it warms up so not a lot of work getting it started and it was a popular item last year. Row four is all about lettuce. It too was super popular last summer even though lots of other farmers also grew it. I’m going to plant a variety of lettuces like I did last year but this time I will do succession plantings every two weeks until the whole row is planted. This strategy will keep the lettuce coming without me having to replant later in the season and should help with it not bolting if left unattended.
We have expanded the arches in Row two and three, so they run the length of the whole row. I’m going to experiment with planting the White Currant tomatoes along most of the arches with the last set being home to the lemon cucumbers. Both the tomatoes and the cucumbers took over the area they were planted in last year and were super prolific in production. Of course, this means I will need to order the containers that will hold these cherry-like Jem’s once they are harvested. In the hoop house, I will again grow tomatoes but this time I’m narrowing it down to two varieties, Black Krim and Black Strawberry. They are both heirloom tomatoes, incredibly tasty and unique.
Rows six and seven will be devoted to flowers this year, varieties still to be determined. Once the flower catalogs arrive, I hope to get them nailed down. I know I will do Zinnias, Celosia and long-stemmed Snapdragons again. I also want to try growing Dahlias. The later are tubers which must be dug up in the fall which is a good thing because I can replant them again the follow year in the cutting flower section of the Market Garden. Currently that area has not been developed but in 2026 it will be! This is also why the flowers I’m planting in the vegetable garden must be annuals. My goal this year is to grow five to seven different types of flowers. I’m hoping summer 2025, I will again be supplying Restoration Vineyards with flowers. I also have two other leads on businesses interested in buying flowers from me. So, I still need to come up with three more varieties to grow.
New this year will be our soft fruit section of the garden. In this area, we will grow strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, table grapes a Mulberry tree and gooseberries. I’ve identified the strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and table grapes in my Burpee catalog. Many of the vegetables are also coming from this one with the rest that are specifically heirloom (like my tomatoes) will come from the Baker Creek catalog. I still need to figure out where the Mulberry tree and the gooseberries will come from and may need to look into additional catalogs for them. I should note that all the catalogs I order from are free. I spend enough money and ordering seeds and supplies, I’m not really interested in also buying a catalog from which I will then buy things from, that seems a bit over kill to me!
Once, the new flower catalogs arrive and I’ve identified the last few flowers, I will create a spread sheet for all the seeds, figure out the quantities and call in the order. Another lesson I learned last year was that I do not have to plant every single seed! Based on the spacing of the vegetables and flowers once they go into the ground, I can get a good idea of how many seedlings I need to start, plus a few extra in case I loose some. For the Lettuce I will order double the quantity so that I have enough to do succession planting as well as replanting if any bolt. This will allow me to work “smarter not harder” as the old saying goes.
I also plan to build some raised beds over by our future Potting Shed, so that we can grow a few veggies just for ourselves. This will include Andy’s peppers, a small quantity of green beans, Delicata Squash (hopefully the Squash bugs won’t find them in this new location) and Marigolds. Last year I sold the Marigolds to our neighbor who owns Simply Noble Ltd, and she made soap out of it. She called it Posh soap and it sold out immediately!
So that is the game plan for seeds this year. With a bit of wisdom under my belt, I am being more intentional in what I grow and therefore more specific and thoughtful in what I order. This combined strategy should, in theory, make growing and planting a lot smoother and less stressful and make the whole process more joyful!
