What Seeds Should You Order for a New Garden

Gardening is wonderful! And, it can easily overwhelm someone with many demands upon their time unless you pace yourself. As I see it, garden vegetables, flowers and herbs can fall into 3 categories that I have outlined below:

Easy	Intermediate	Advanced
Salad Crops (lettuce, arugula, spinach, mustards, Chard, Chinese Cabbage)	Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplants	Carrots and Parsnips
Summer Squash / Zucchini, Cucumbers	Potatoes	Garlic & Shallots
Marigolds, Zinnia, Cosmos, Sunflowers	Kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Brussels Sprouts	Melons (Cantaloupes and Watermelons
Radishes, Beets, Rutabaga, Turnips	Onions & Leeks	Small seeded, frost sensitive flowers
Peas, Green Beans	Winter Squash	Seeds with long germination times
Cilantro, Dill, Basil	Sweet Peas	Dahlias
Pumpkins	Sweet Corn	Flour Corn, Popcorn

Of Course these delineations are somewhat arbitrary, but I just wanted to depict that common vegetables such as carrots and melons are actually quite difficult to either direct seed, or ripen successfully. Starting with simple things like salad crops, radishes, cilantro and sunflowers is always a great place to start. You may also want to consider what produce that you currently purchase. Also, consider that some crops are challenged by pests that are regional such as gophers, bean beetles, cucumber beetles, crows, etc. So, while potatoes seems easy to grow in theory, if you live where gophers, or late blight are problematic, growing potatoes can be difficult. If you are new to gardening or have encountered difficulty, perhaps this chart can help guide you towards sowing for success!

Also you may benefit from our planting calendar for our area in Oregon (you may have to adjust for different regions)

https://www.siskiyouseeds.com/pages/planting-calendar

Also here is a short video with some planting suggestions for mid Spring:

https://youtu.be/0_bMxC6liVU

We have a few collections of our favorites that are bundled together that reflect our best selling and most commonly planted seeds that you can explore by following the link here:

https://www.siskiyouseeds.com/collections/vegetable-collections/products/farmer-dons-favorites-collection

STargirl

Jan 28, 2020

By Sweet Peas in the second column, are you referencing the flower?
Kathy Gault

Jan 28, 2020

Interesting lists, and a good plan to ‘sow’ the idea that some things are easier to start/grow than others. When I first started gardening, there was no internet or email, and my only resources were magazines and books I found here and there. My neighbors were not at all useful, as one and all they told me it was impossible to grow a garden here in Central Oregon. In our short growing season, my list of ‘Easy’ ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Advanced’ crops are fairly similar, with some definite exceptions. For us, peas are definitely in the ‘easy’ column, but green beans are not, because of the lateness and unpredictability of our last spring frost, as well as early fall frost. Only the shortest season varieties do well here (ie produce beans). Basil is another I would put in the ‘Advanced’ column, simply because it turns black at the slightest whiff of cold air. I tell my students just walking by a basil plant with a glass of iced tea can make it freeze. (smile) Potatoes, garlic and shallots are or were formerly grown commercially in our area (when little else was), so I would put them in ‘easy’ or ‘intermediate’. I teach several gardening classes for our CC Community Education here and I am going to adapt this idea for my class notes. thanks so much for a great article!
Mari Keating

Jan 24, 2020

We are only recently acquainted with you and can’t wait to get an order in for Spring. We have our annual seed swap ( number 10!) coming up on Feb.1, 2020, and even though this is very last minute, we would like to inquire if you ever donate last year’s seeds to causes such as this?
We have chosen not to be a non-profit, focusing instead on stressing the importance of radical participation among our members, so we don’t have a fund of money to work with to round out our saved seed collections.
I hope you do and will. At any rate, thank you for your integrity and commitment to providing quality, open-pollinated seeds.
Hope to here from you soon as you will from us!
Be well!
Mari Keating

What Seeds Should You Order for a New Garden

Comments (3)

STargirl

Kathy Gault

Mari Keating

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