Selecting the Right Varieties for Your Garden

A tomato is a tomato, right? Listen, I get it. I too wish we would just plant something and it would grow perfectly every time, all year round. Unfortunately, that is not how nature works. Often, it takes the right variety in your garden (at the right time of year) to give you the best chances of success that season.

So what do I mean by “the right variety?” Well, you have a few reasons why a certain plant will give you better chances for success. The first being, a plant that grows well in a certain location will produce seeds that are likely to have the same results in that same area. That is why you want to find seeds or seedlings of plants grown nearest to your location, because the parent plant was already adapted to your environment.

Secondly, some plants have been crossed and selected for beneficial properties like disease resistance. If you have a common disease in your area, seeds and seedlings that came from hardier plants will pass on their genetics to be hardier in your garden as well. No, this does not mean “genetically modified.'“ That is a whole other topic for another blog post.

Another consideration is that some varieties simply do well during specific times of the year. That could be because of the temperatures (highs and lows), it could be the amount of sunlight (longer or shorter days), or that could be the amount of rain or humidity (wet to dry).

So, let’s use tomatoes as the example. Say you live in South Florida and it’s summertime. You will find that the only tomatoes that give you fruit throughout the summer are Everglades Tomatoes, some small cherry-type tomatoes, and high-heat hybrid tomatoes. The reason is that the flowers of most tomatoes simply don’t produce fruit above 85*F. Now, that is not to say you can’t grow tomatoes in South Florida in the summer. You absolutely can. You just will have higher yields and greater success with the specific varieties that don’t mind the heat too much.

Or how about my favorite herb that bursts people’s bubbles: cilantro. Cilantro is typically associated with summer, salsa, and backyard parties. However, cilantro does not like high heat and humidity. It likes cooler (not cold) temperatures and somewhat dry. In other words, the perfect time to grow cilantro in South Florida is in the winter. And do you know why that is? Because cilantro is most likely (okay there’s a little debate) native to the Mediterranean - cooler and drier than our conditions in South Florida.

I know that last example was about the right time of year to plant, but it is another part of the equation here. The “right” variety means choosing the right plant for the right time. As we head into fall, James and I have chose varieties of seasonally appropriate plants to grow in our garden. We have our gardening calendars that we have learned to tweak slightly for our micro-climate, and we scoured different sources for seeds that are harvested from plants that like similar conditions to what we have here.

For years, we tried to find the “right” seedlings from nurseries and big-box-stores. The issue remains that they are either not offered in the appropriate season, or they are very limited in varieties and those are often not the “right” ones. I remember struggling to find more than jalapeños and poblanos. Or only finding one unnamed broccoli at a big-box-store. So we decided to offer our seedlings to you, using the same varieties we are planting in our own garden.

That way, you can get growing right away, without having to do the hours and hours of research we had to do. All of the seedlings are being grown right in our backyard. And while we can’t call ourselves “organic,” we can promise you that we are not using any sort of pesticides or herbicides on our property. Some of the seeds sourced are “organic” while others are hybrids selected for their unique qualities, and that is listed right in the descriptions. None of the seedlings are GMO.

To order your fall seedlings, pre-orders are currently open through the first week of September. Pickup dates are on the Pre-Orders website page. We hope you are as excited about the varieties we chose as we are. We can’t wait to grow with you!