Vegetables Gardening - Growing Organic Vegetables

I always agree with Jim (he knows lot more than I do!) and the books are excellent. Study some seed catalogs for varieties. I go with the companies that sell in bulk.

Mountain Valley Seeds (www.mvseeds.com) in UT is a good one. You often find 10X the seed for close to the same price as retail seed sales, better descriptions, varieties, etc.

Since I am a low maintenance gardener, I have been more successful sowing a lot of seed and giving away plants, than sowing small quantities and having them all die.

Varieties are generally categorized as fresh eating or canning/processing varieties. The canning varieties have more meat, less water.

I started with heirloom varieties, but I am now moving to hybrids (per Mittleider recommendations!!). Having your crop destroyed by disease is a big motivator (resistance is found in hybrids that are not typically in heirlooms).

For canning you want to pick plants that bear mostly in short time window, otherwise you never accumulate enough quantities to make it worth canning. Here in NC (zone 7-8), I learned from the older people to time harvest for early Fall so that it is not so hot in the kitchen to can (large quantities).

Because we have a long growing season, I now sow thickly directly into soil for canning varieties (June 1: 4-6 weeks after normal set out of plants), let them germinate, and then transplant to space out. You won't get early tomatoes, but the plants sown this way catch up very fast and even supercede the earlies. You can still start/buy some for your early eating tomatoes. Mike.

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