Best Seeds for a Bigger, Better Garden

(Page 2 of 7)

December 2008/January 2009
By Barbara Pleasant 
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A new regional resource has emerged in the South, where David Bradshaw recently enriched the variety list offered by the South Carolina Foundation Seeds Association with his personal picks, collected during the years he served as South Carolina’s extension horticulture specialist. If you want disease-resistant Southern peas or ‘O’Henry’ sweet potato (a white-fleshed version of ‘Beauregard’), South Carolina Foundation Seeds is the place to look.

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3. Seeds to Share

If you want truly local seeds, be on the lookout for events such as the Gardener’s Seed Swap hosted by the Toledo (Ohio) Botanical Gardens. Begun several years ago by community gardens coordinator Michael Szuberla as a way to clear out his office storage closet, the swap has expanded into a two-day event that attracts more than 500 gardeners. In Canada, Seeds of Diversity holds “Seedy Saturday” seed swaps at more than 50 locations throughout the provinces. You might even form a “crop circle” in your own town — a loose association of friendly gardeners who meet a few times a year to share seeds, samples and good times. (See "Find the Seeds You Need," below, for how Mother Earth News can help you contact other gardeners in your community.)

4. Natural Good Health

Many hybrid varieties offer resistance to common diseases, but lately some open-pollinated varieties have had their resistance levels raised by talented plant breeders. If your cucumber-family crops go white with powdery mildew before the season ends, High Mowing Seeds can fix you up with ‘Sweet REBA’ acorn squash, ‘PMR Delicious 51’ cantaloupe, or ‘Success PM’ yellow straightneck summer squash — three of the best varieties recently bred at Cornell University in New York. Nichols Garden Nursery has ‘Hannah’s Choice’ cantaloupe, another disease-resistant Cornell variety with superior flavor and aroma. It’s also on Cornell’s Selected List of Vegetable Varieties.

If it’s trouble-tolerant tomatoes you’re after, you will be wise to include some hybrids in your garden, but they need not be cardboard commercial varieties. For example, ‘Country Taste’ from Park delivers rich tomato flavor while providing resistance to fusarium and verticillium wilt diseases. In similar style, Burpee’s bright orange ‘Sweet Tangerine’ offers vibrant fruity taste on tough, disease-resistant plants.

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