How to Choose Seeds for Your Garden Without Wasting Money

It's seed catalogue season, which means I'm once again convinced this will be the year I grow all my vegetables for the entire…I really want to scream YEAR, but a more realistic goal is half the year, especially since I'm still a beginner working with subpar soil.

The trouble is that seed catalogues have a magical way of making every plant sound irresistible. Suddenly, I'm imagining a garden full of rare tomatoes, herbs I've never even heard of, exotic flowers, and at least six things my family will not actually eat.

Ask me how I know.

After ordering way too many seeds for my first small garden, I've learned that choosing seeds wisely matters just as much as choosing easy vegetables. So before you fill your cart, here are my best tips for picking seeds that suit your climate, your space, your skill level, and the people you actually have to feed.

Grow what you love

It may seem like a good idea to try growing your own brussel sprouts, but it won't be if your brussel sprouts stay on the stalk to rot because it turns out brussel sprouts really aren't your family's favourite. Just so you know, our family has never done anything so wasteful - at least not more than a couple times.

And I know how cool collards, kohlrabi and fava beans sound, but think carefully about your family's reaction when they are staring at it on their dinner plate, possibly for the sixth night in a row.

Beware of seed catalogues

One of the best seed-choosing tips I have ever received is from Alyson Chisholm from Windy Hill Organic Farm in McKees Mills, New Brunswick, during one of her excellent organic gardening courses.

When you are perusing all of these enticing seed catalogues and trying to figure out which of the amazing vegetables you should grow (because they will all sound amazing), read between the lines.

For example, if the catalogue says a cucumber is vigorous and has excellent disease resistance, but doesn't mention anything about its great taste, there is a good chance it is not the most delicious variety. And vice versa.

So if the catalogue raves about its sweet flavour and beautiful colouring, but mentions nothing about disease tolerance, it's most likely not.

What this means is you have to decide what's most important to you. For me, it's taste. I will choose the tastiest variety over disease resistance, early maturing, high yielding, etc. Hmmm...maybe this is one of the reasons why my garden is nothing to rave about.

Stick to the basics

If you aren't careful, you can easily spend hundreds of your gardening dollars just on seeds. I ordered over 80 seed packets and plants for my first small garden. I'm not joking. I  planted everything from skirret and sea kale to soapwort (because I was, of course, going to dry the roots and make homemade soap. As you have likely guessed, that never happened, but I had dreams...oh so many dreams for that little garden.)

If I were starting my first garden again, I'd begin with a few easy, reliable crops like:

• Peas
• Beans
• Radishes
• Lettuce
• Kale
• Carrots
• Zucchini
• Cucumbers
• Tomatoes

For a fuller list, see my guide to the easiest vegetables to grow in Canada.

Know which seeds need a head start

Some seeds are easy to plant directly in the garden, which is called direct sowing. Peas, beans, radishes, carrots, lettuce, beets, and zucchini are all good beginner-friendly crops to direct sow.

Other plants need a longer growing season. Tomatoes and peppers, for example, usually need to be started indoors in Canada, or you can buy transplants from a nursery.

Here are a few of our family's favourite seed choices:

My Top Pick:
Mystery Keeper Tomatoes
Every single cold-climate gardener should have Mystery Keeper tomatoes in their garden. You know the picture of my mozzarella cheese from last week's post? The featured tomato is from my garden. We're in January, and I still have fresh tomatoes to chop up and use in salads or on top of pizza.

You don't even have to keep them in any special storage conditions. I simply keep mine on my kitchen counter.

No, they are not the best-tasting tomatoes I've ever had, but they are very good, and they save me from having to spend hours and hours water bath canning or buying tasteless, expensive tomatoes at the store during the off-season.

The key to success is to harvest them after they begin to lighten from their greenest stage AND before frost hits. Harvest them at the wrong time, and they will not keep well.

One of the strange things about keeper tomatoes is that they ripen from the inside out. So on the outside they may look orange or pink, but inside you will find ripe red flesh.

Jeremie's Top Pick:
Rainbow carrots
We grow tonnes of carrots in our garden because they are easy to grow in our poor soil, which we are still trying to remedy, and can simply be stored in the soil until ready to use.

If you have kids, or even if you don't, you should try growing carrots in a rainbow of colours because it's fun and they're tasty. This year, I ordered the coloured carrot collection from Veseys, which contains purple, white, yellow, and light and dark orange varieties. We have had great success, especially with the Rainbow carrot in our clay soil. Typically carrots fork in hard soil, but these guys are extremely tough and grow nice long roots even when we've had to dig them out.

Ella's top pick:
Aunt Molly's Organic Ground Cherries
Ella doesn't like tomatoes, but she loves ground cherries, which I would describe as tropical tomatoes with a hint of pineapple taste. Each plant produces loads of these cherry-sized delights in a Chinese lantern-like wrapper. They can be preserved, but the kids eat them even before I can bring them in the house.

Jack's top pick:
Honey and Cream Corn
Jack simply likes corn, so I think his pick has more to do with his favourite garden food than with the actual variety. Nevertheless, the corn was tasty and best of all - it grew! This was the third summer I've tried growing corn using different varieties, and this is the first year I've had success.  So yes, I will be growing Honey and Cream again.

Special mentions:
Sungold Tomato
These are the best-tasting tomatoes I've ever had. They are little balls of pure sugary delight that rarely make it into the kitchen. Instead, they are gobbled up on the vine and fought over. My mom introduced me to these bright orange, cherry-sized fruits last year, and they quickly became our family's favourite tomato.

Sorrel
My kids only eat salad greens when I force them to, but they both love this perennial leafy herb. Probably because it doesn't taste like a salad green, but like lemon sour candy. It is one of those herbs that is easy to grow - so beware.

The best seeds are not always the rarest or most exciting ones. They're the ones that actually turn into food your family wants to eat. What are you growing in your garden this year?