A beginners guide to sourcing high quality organic seeds for your home vegetable garden.

Growing vegetables from seeds, or “direct seeding,” in your garden is one of the best things about growing food at home! It can be a challenge to find varieties that are easy to grow, well adapted for your garden, and delicious. So save yourself the trouble and get your hands on some tried and true varieties that we love!

Well the Chimney Swifts are beginning to swirl in the September sky, the evenings have a bite that feels rather welcome, and I can't help but feel like summer is getting on. One wouldn't know it, with temperatures climbing back into the 90's (!), but we all know that Fall and Winter will be ours soon enough. Though it is far too late in the season for planting most vegetables, there are a handful of reliable and quick to mature vegetables that I am still planting in my garden and in my clients' gardens!! If you are quick about it, you too can still squeeze a little more out of your garden this season.

Direct sowing is one of my absolute favorite garden activities. Not only do we get to participate in a totally miraculous and unbelievable process, growing vegetables from seeds also has many benefits that can lead to healthier, happier, and more productive plants.

The search for and acquisition of seeds is my very first act of gardening each year. For me, this process begins months before I amend my soil in the spring or plant the first pea seeds. It is a process that I take deep pleasure in for several reasons.

Last week I took up the discussion of why we would want to grow vegetables from seeds instead of from nursery starts. And as it turns out, there are tons reasons why choosing seeds can be even better than starts. If you missed last week’s post, check out “Part 1: Why Grow Seeds?” to get in the mood.

I still remember the experiment in kindergarten: Planting a single bean in a paper cup filled with soil. We lined them up on the window sill, giving them their daily watering and waited with vague anticipation for... what? I waited, I grew impatient, I lost interest. But I was drawn back one day to some faint stirring in the soil. And then, those first two leaves, those pale and waxy cotyledons stretching out like fists, and then unfurling like tiny hands in happy defiance while roots stretched equally downward somewhere below. I loved my bean. I reveled in its bravery and its mystery. In some ways, I have come a long way since my paper cup, but my fascination with that little miracle has not. And I am grateful for that.

Nurseries have not been spared from major disruption during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Lots of people have had difficulty accessing plants, seeds, and supplies. So we wanted to take a moment to compile some local resources for home gardeners looking for help!