Lately I’ve been seeing collections of favorite seeds by garden YouTubers, bloggers, and writers. Well, those who know me, know that I am made up almost entirely of opinions; so, creating my own list seemed inevitable. I have been gardening for about 40 years now and have tried and true favorites I order year after year. So here goes, in no special order, “Kat Favs.”

Mokum carrot is the first to come to mind. This carrot is early, crisp and full of carroty flavor not just sweetness. In my short zone 4b/5a garden, I get a harvest from both early spring and summer sowings. My other carrot fav is the heirloom Red-cored Chantenay. Chantenay types have a tapered root and fat top giving it an attractive old-fashioned stout conical shape. They aren’t just pretty to look at though, they are my go to for winter stews. Their carrot flavor stands up to the richest gravy. These keep all winter in the ground with just a layer of straw cover. On mild winter days my husband picks enough to fill our refrigerator crisper drawer. We are able to do this 4-5 times and have fresh carrots last all winter.

My must haves for pickling are Calypso cucumber, Rosa di Milano red onion, and Chioggia beets. With these the winter is brightened by adding pickled beets to salads and bread and butter pickles to sandwiches or buttered Irish soda bread. I must also mention 3 Root Grex, a blend of beets of extraordinary colors- yellow, orange, pink, and ruby. I like to pick these early; they steam/boil quickly when fresh picked, then peel (leaving some stem), and toss with butter. I have never met anyone who wasn’t a beet convert after trying these!

A similar colorful beauty I also grow is Easter Egg radish. With one packet you get white, pink, red and purple radishes just a month after sowing. Great for a children’s garden. Zucchini is another child pleaser with the amazing, seemingly overnight growth of its fruits. Please your taste buds too with Zypher, a yellow and green color-blocked zucchini that has a delicious nutty flavor. As I write this I’m beginning to see a trend…I like color. But after all, as color translates into vitamins, it’s not a bad yardstick. I’ll add a new colorful favorite Dazzling Blue kale. Pretty enough for the flower boarder, this sport of Lacinato (Dinosaur) kale has the added benefit of being much hardier than its delicious Italian cousin. I picked fresh from the garden until Thanksgiving.

Maxibel French green bean or fillet bean has been a favorite for years. I keep on trying other varieties but come back to Maxibel. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without a big steaming bowl of these! Waltham Butternut squash is also a Thanksgiving must have along with mashed Carola potatoes.

I have lots a favs in the lettuce category especially Tom Thumb, Rex, Jericho, and Rouge D’Hiver. Other greens I wouldn’t want to be without are Deadon Savoy and Ruby Perfection cabbage, Ruby Red and Bright Lights chard, Wasabi arugula, and my beloved Tyee spinach that sadly is no longer available. I’m still looking for a replacement that equals it!

I’ll finish with everyone’s favorite veg to grow…tomato. My favorites in the tomato category are: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, unparalleled for old fashioned tomato taste. I’m drooling just think about them! I also love Sungold , early and tasting as sweet as a melon. Constoluto di Genovese, Principe Borghese, are gorgeous Italian heirlooms. And for paste, I love Specked Roman.

I hope you try some of my favorites and please share your favorites (especially spinach) in the comments!

When I was five my parents took me to New York City for the flower show. I remember only two things from that trip, a redwood brought in for one of the landscape displays and my very first flower purchase. That redwood was awe inspiring but what little girl could resist the pull of a tiny flower that looks like a purple teddy bear? The argeratum, a low growing annual with tiny, fuzzy purple flowers, no longer fits my grown up tastes but thinking of them always makes me smile. However, some of my other early favorites have a secure place in my garden. The first of these old friends is not only purple but smells like grape candy. In fact, I’ve been inspired to write this post because they are in bloom now, the grape hyacinth. I can’t resist lying down on my belly and breathing them in!

Another grape-scented beauty I still love is a deep purple bearded iris. The unusual shape, again the fuzzy patch, the beard, on the falls was exciting to me. But that sweet grape scent was its greatest draw. These old-fashioned bearded irises are hard to find. Anyone who has one of these in their garden….I’d love to discuss a trade!

Others whose scent intoxicated my young brain were the lilac and lily of the valley. These both bloomed on my birthday. Since I have moved farther north I have to wait a month longer to enjoy them. The sense of smell plays an important role in the physiological effects of mood. Scents take a direct route to the amygdala and the hippocampus, the regions of the brain related to emotion and memory. No wonder these fragrant beauties have cemented themselves in my mind.

I am first and foremost a gardener. But who among us couldn’t use a little help now and then? I don’t mean the two-legged kind that can be reluctant or not share your enthusiasm. No, I mean animals. There are many permaculture models that have cows on pasture, followed by sheep, followed by chickens. I am not interested in raising animals for meat. I am a meat-eater and have come to terms with what is means to nourish myself with the flesh of other living things. I have killed a chicken to eat and it has taught me what a gift it is and never to waste any part of it. Still, I don’t have the desire to raise and kill my own animals. I have made connections in the community with those who enjoy the raising of animals and all that entails and I am happy to support them with my purchasing dollars. My animal partners help me with gardening and don’t need to give up their lives to do so.

I have an 8,000 square foot vegetable garden, two hundred-foot flower borders, herb gardens, fruit orchards, and a food forest. This seems like a lot and it has evolved over 20 years but it is not a pasture farm with large animals described above. In fact, you could probably squeeze all this to an acre or two of land. So who are my animal helpers and what do they do for me? I keep chickens and bees and my garden flourishes as a result.

Incorporating animals is following nature’s example. It is ridiculous to think the basic rules are not in play in our own gardens just because we have taken on the role of orchestrator on our given plot. The first and most important rule of gardening with nature is to do no harm. No chemicals of any kind. No artificial fertilizer, pesticides, or herbicides. None. If this is not how you are used to garden you may be afraid to let go. Trust me, the partners who come to help will more than make up for what may be lost by the occasional nibbling insect or invading weed. Clean healthy soil will encourage worms that aerate the soil and nourish it with their droppings. Putting up a few bird houses will encourage them to stick around for lunch and eat unwanted insects. I once had been dismayed by squash beetles that had descended on tender transplants I had recently put out. They were covered and I feared were a total loss. Rather than have an empty patch I added a pretty trellis my sons had made for me. I went in and attempted to soothe myself with a cup of tea on the deck which overlooks the garden. While sitting there I saw a bird land on the perch, look down and seem to be delighted at the feast below. He dropped to the bed and gobbled up all the beetles. I had a bumper crop of squash after all! Now I always add perches for these helpers. I could also wax poetic on the value of the microorganisms and fungi in the soil and how they feed the plants. But the truth is, follow rule number one and you can reap the rewards of the soil microcosm without needing to know the details.

Now the the animals I “hire,” these animal partners and I work together for mutual success. First the chickens. I keep layers. So the first, obvious gift I receive is eggs. But too many folks overlook how helpful chickens in the garden can be. We (read: my dear husband) used to muck out the chicken coop regularly and compost this for a year or so until it was ready to add to the garden beds. We have found easier, faster ways to have the chickens help build our soil. If you haven’t yet heard of a “chicken tractor” look it up and find one that works for you. Basically, this is a moveable coop that is either bottomless or has a mesh bottom (use 1″ mesh) so manure falls through. No more mucking out the chicken coop!! Simply move the coop around your garden. The chickens will scratch to their hearts content eating insects and weed seeds and dropping their fertilizer and scratching it in to the soil. Often times not much else is necessary to prepare the bed. Simply rake it smooth, add an inch or so of compost mulch then your bed is ready to plant or seed. This is best done in the early spring and late fall, before or after planting. During the summer, I rotate the “girls” on my orchards, food forest, and lawns. In winter, I add a foot thick bed of wood chips to my greenhouse (plastic high-tunnel). I roll in their nest boxes and put in a few perches. They scratch and poop all winter into this mulch creating a lovely compost to add to my beds the next season. You only need 3 square feet per bird. I also throw all my kitchen scraps to them over the winter. Chickens are wonderful alchemists turning garbage to garden gold!

Not to be outdone, my other partners, the bees also serve me in two ways. They give me honey of course and pollinate my fruits, vegetables and flowers. In return I give them houses (hives) and protection from bears. The keeping of bees does take a bit of courage but once you have made friends it is a thrilling undertaking. Most of you know that bee populations have been declining over the past few decades. This has the potential to be devastating to worldwide food production which relies on these and other insects for pollination. Keeping your own can help restore the wild populations as well as pollinate not only your plants but those in the wild that birds and others wildlife need for survival. I plant many of their favorites in the garden like sweet alyssum, poppies, and herbs like lovage and parsley that I let go to seed. They return the favor with beautiful flowers and bountiful harvests. Then their golden honey keeps me sweet all winter!

The forgotten dimension, the vertical. The lack of this one feature is the easiest way to spot a beginning gardener. And conversely, the easiest way to make your garden look as good as anything in a glossy magazine spread is to add vertical interest. Vertical interest can be defined as anything that rises at or above eye level. This interest can be plant material or hardscape. When creating two very large perennial flower boarders for my son’s wedding I added six 8-foot tuteurs (wooden towers) painted a deep purple. They added color, continuity, and height to a new garden making it appear more mature than it was.

Staggering heights in a flower garden also adds interest. Don’t fall into the trap of regimented tall plants in the back with medium and low growers in front. Mix it up a bit and have a surprise tall spike here and there upfront. The classic English mixed perennial border is when trees and shrubs are combined with perennial flowers. This combination guarantees vertical interest. Be careful to pay attention to the mature heights and widths when adding these larger elements. If you only have room for a small garden anchoring it with one well-chosen shrub will suffice.

Vegetable garden interest and productivity are also enhanced by growing up! Examples are pole beans growing up a bamboo tepee or simply adding tall crops like corn or sunflowers to the mix.  Similar to the tuteurs in the flower boarder, paint a post a fun color and top it with a birdhouse. Grow a vining flower or vegetable on it or not, it’s up to you. Vegetables that grow on vines can be trained to grow up on a support. Try cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, peas, beans, gourds, or even tomatoes. The types of supports they can grow on is only limited by your imagination.  Use upcycled materials when you can. An old gate, a recently pruned or fallen tree branch (white birch looks especially good used this way), the base of an old standing lamp are some examples. Building a trellis using a piece of fencing or hog wire which is very heavy gauge fencing that comes in 4’x20’ panels, works well for heavier vegetables like pumpkins. Attaching it to metal or wooden posts makes a great archway entrance to your vegetable garden. If you have a small poly tunnel for starting seeds, you can remove the plastic in the summer and use the upright hoops to train vines. This has the added benefit of creating a shaded area underneath to set up a sitting or dining area. Add fairy lights…magical.

Spring in the garden is “new” in the best sense. New with no mistakes in it. If you are a reader of books on garden design you will have heard about “good bones.” This means that the structure of the garden is strong and pleasing. There is no better time to access this than early spring. A garden with good bones will give great satisfaction now before we start looking at it as a sea of tasks. All the snow has melted leaving neat rows, squares, and mounded beds in attractive patterns and textures in a palette of tans and browns. We are full of hope. This year…..

Practical doesn’t trump beautiful. A vegetable garden can be every bit as beautiful as a flower bed. Even accounting for differences is style and taste, what makes a vegetable garden beautiful is order. The design can be straight rows, raised beds, geometric patterns, or free-form. What establishes a sense of order is the clear demarcation of bed and path and garden and lawn. In a word – edging.

Many beginning gardeners think edging in wood, brick, or stone is the best way to accomplish this. While these are valid approaches and can be very attractive, it’s actually more difficult to maintain. It’s much easier to till freely and re-establish an edge with a grass path each year with touch ups as necessary. A flat spade or an edging tool is best for the job. First, clearly delineate your edge (see below) use one of these tools and use your foot to push down vertically to cut the roots of the grass then throw the soil onto the bed creating a mound. Pull free any weeds or plant roots. A garden that is well edged will look good even if you are behind in your weeding.

Ways to Mark an Edge:

Straight lines can easily be marked with a ball of mason’s string (mason’s string stretches less than standard string) between two stakes at either end of the bed. A circular bed can be made by fashioning an oversized compass. Simply tie the end of a string to stake in the middle of the bed. Extend the string to the desired radius and walk in a circle marking the perimeter as you go. Tie a bottle of garden lime to the end of the string and tap out bits as you go around the edge. Curves are easily made by using the garden hose as a “string.” This method makes gentle curves your lawnmower can cut around.

As well as edging within a garden an edge or frame around the garden is essential. The frame could be a traditional picket fence, a structural plant like the pyramid shaped Alberta spruce in each corner, or a surrounding brick path. A vegetable garden with good bones can hold its own in any overall landscape plan and doesn’t need to be hidden behind the garage. A garden that is beautiful is a magnet for the gardener and is more likely to be maintained.

~Kat

Admire large gardens, plant small ones.

If you only have a small area in which to garden or a limited amount of time to devote to gardening consider making one of the following 10 x 10 ft specialty plots. Gardeners with limited time or space often make the mistake of trying to grow a little bit of everything but then become discouraged by their low productivity. Instead, try becoming self-sufficient in only one or a few vegetables at a time, adding varieties as space, time, and expertise allow. These 10 x 10 ft plots are practical because they are easy to work and maneuver around but any shape you choose can do.

NOTE – Yield is based on Jon Jeavons most conservative estimates in “How to Grow More Vegetables in Less Space than You Thought Possible.”

Eat Your Greens Garden

This garden is filled with greens for fresh harvesting like lettuce and kale as well as spinach and broccoli that you can freeze and eat all winter. Enjoy fresh lettuce over a longer season by staggering the planting. Plant a side every 2 weeks with 15 -20 seeds. Spinach can be planted twice, in spring and again in the fall after the cabbages are harvested. Chard and kale can be cut again and again all season. Broccoli also loves the cold weather so they can be planted after the spinach and picked well into the fall. Look for varieties that produce side shoots after the main head is picked for even greater productivity.

The Staple Garden is an easy plot that gets planted in early spring. Once planted, a thick mulch reduces the need to weed. At the end of the season you can expect to have 50 pounds of potatoes, 25 pounds of onions, and 25 pounds of carrots. Like money in the bank!

Plant Protein Garden

Vegan? Trying to reduce your meat consumption or just enjoy these protein packed veggies? Either way, this 100 square foot plot will yield 30 pounds of green beans, 5 pounds of peas and 10 pounds of soybeans (edamame). Plenty to eat now and more to freeze for later.

Hint: Use a tepee or trellis for the peas to increase yield.

Tomato Sauce Garden

Plant paste tomatoes in this garden for the richest sauce. Try Roma or Amish Paste. They are meatier than slicing types. You can expect to harvest 50 pounds of tomatoes from this garden. Season with onions, garlic, and basil to create a flavorful sauce to enjoy all winter.

The Pickle Garden

Get out your favorite pickle recipes! Whether you like pickles sweet or dilled, you will have plenty of produce to fill your shelves.

Hint: plant sweet green or hot peppers but not both or they will all be hot!

Herb Garden

Herbs are more than seasoning. They are beautiful and many offer health benefits of their own. For example, dill has long been used as a digestive aid. This is why it is often found in recipes like cole slaw to aid in digesting the cabbage. These herbs can be used fresh, dried, or preserved in oil or vinegar.

Think Outside The Box

When you decide you are ready to add more garden plots think about more than straight lines. A vegetable garden can be beautiful too!

~ Kat