May 03 2008
Vegetable Garden Seeds for the Nurturing Gardener
Vegetable garden seeds are a wonderful way for fledgling gardeners to get started on their quest for fresh vegetables. Of course, it will take quite a bit of patience as cultivating vegetables from seed takes quite a bit longer than planting already sprouted seedlings that can be purchased at the garden center. However, as that first bountiful harvest is consumed, beginning gardeners will say that the effort and time is well worth it – and their satisfied taste buds and stomach can attest to it!
Easy Starters
In the world of vegetable garden seeds, there are some that are easier than others to cultivate, especially for beginners. It is best to start with those vegetables that are easy to start from seed and then work your way up to the ones that require a bit more attention and tender loving care. The top vegetable for many gardeners that is quite easy to grow from vegetable garden seeds is the tomato but of course there is one difficult aspect – choosing which variety to start with! There are a lot of different varieties of tomatoes to choose from including hearty beefsteak or heirlooms all the way to the small cherry tomatoes you can put in salads.
The next two popular types of vegetable garden seeds will produce ingredients for a salad and they are lettuce and cucumbers. Of course, with these two vegetables, several varieties exist for each one so there are some decisions to make! You could plant cucumbers that grow long and fat or you could choose the shorter variety that makes for great homemade pickles. Lettuce varieties include iceberg, bib, red leaf, mesclun and more.
Feeling Adventurous
When you are ready to expand into new horizons in terms of your vegetable garden seeds, there are plenty variations of vegetables as well as hybrids and more exotic selections to choose. For instance, if you are a broccoli and cauliflower lover, there is a hybrid called the broccoliflower, which is a cross between the two vegetables. Kohlrabi is an interesting root vegetable that would likely appeal to you if you already enjoy other root vegetables like turnips and rutabagas.
Beans and peas are tasty and sometimes overlooked vegetable garden seeds as people tend to believe they do not have enough room to grow them. While some beans and peas do grow on climbing vines, there are others that simply grow on bushes. Even with a small plot of land, there is always room for some pea or bean seed plantings. A Southern down home hit is the butter bean or purple hull peas while up north, green peas and green beans may win gardeners over.
All in all, vegetable garden seeds are plentiful so you will have to rely on your taste buds to guide you to your chosen vegetables. Of course, you have to take into account your climate as well as the soil and size of your garden plot before making your selections.
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