Time to Plan the Summer Vegetable Garden


From Bill:
Whether you’re about to embark on your first vegetable garden or have many years of experience, it’s time to be thinking about where and what to plant this year.   No matter how much you know, there’s always more to learn about vegetable gardening and there are lots of books out there to advance your knowledge.  On a recent visit to the book store I found a whole wall of books about vegetable gardening and I’ve been reading on the subject since the 1970’s.  There are two contemporary books I can highly recommend:


“Golden Gate Gardening—A Complete Guide to Year-Round Food Gardening in the San Francisco Bay Area and Coastal California” by Pam Pierce, Sasquatch Books. 


“The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food” by Tanya L. K. Denckla, Storey Books.  


Both of these books provide a good reference for growing specific vegetables and vegetable gardening in general.  Golden Gate Gardening also provides excellent detail on  growing vegetables specifically in our area.  I think almost any gardener can learn from reading the first part of this book.  Although I’ve found a lot of information on growing vegetables on the Internet, much of it is not applicable to our area or to the home gardener.  These books are a good place to start before looking for nuances of information on-line.


And if you’re going to start gardening, it’s time to be thinking about seeds—I already have 15 six packs of seeds planted and sprouting on my germinating heating pads.  The first sprouts were up after only a week, so I’ve turned on the lights.  I have been using commercial planting mix as the medium for starting my seeds but it hasn’t been entirely satisfactory in the past so I’ve sent away for some germinating mix to try for the first time.  There are recipes for preparing your own germinating mix but you need to have all the resources available.  


As for where to get seeds, you can start by hitting the local garden center and checking out their seed racks.  However, to get a sense of possibilities, seed catalogs are a great source.  You can go on-line and search for seeds from the various suppliers but I think it’s easier and more fun to go through the hard copies.  Here are a few we suggest:


Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds  www.rareseeds.com, 1-417-924-8917
    (the most beautiful vegetables you’ll ever see…)
Territorial Seed Company  www.territorialseed.com or 1-800-626-0866
Seeds of Change   www.seedsofchange.com    1-888-762-7333      
Burpee  www.gardeners.com    or 1-800-888-1447