Now is the perfect time to design your garden and order or pick-up your seeds. My master gardener friends have alerted me that seed supplies for 2021 will be smaller than normal, and demand will be higher than usual since people are staying at home. Remember that feeling of satisfaction when you snatched the last package of Charmin off the shelf? Time to relive your glory days and snag that packet of rattlesnake green beans before they’re gone.
It’s easier to buy plants when the weather is warm and they are plentiful, but for sheer variety, it’s hard to beat growing plants from seeds. For fast growing plants, seeds can go in the ground once the soil warms up, but you’ll need to plan ahead for plants that have a slower root development. These include cauliflower, tomatoes, celery, peppers and eggplant.
If you like the idea of growing vegetables, but haven’t tried it before, start small and see what happens. All you need is a sunny spot in your yard and some decent soil. If you’re tight on space you can grow tomatoes, potatoes, herbs and other veggies in containers on your porch. From my experience, potatoes do better above ground in a large black plastic container than they do in the ground, and fresh new potatoes are hard to beat. My favorite go-to seed suppliers are Park Seed, Burpee, and Johnny’s Selected Seeds.