Now that I have my gardens all set up and ready to go it's time to start planting seeds, right? Well, not so fast. There is lots of preparation to be done before we reach that point. First off I need seeds.
Knowing what to plant is a pretty tough choice. I honestly have never grown a vegetable in my life and have no idea what will grow here in Daly City. Most places have seasons, we have SEASON as in one. The weather doesn't really change here. It's about 65°F all the time and it gets down to about 45° - 50°F at night. In addition the Bay Area is full of micro climates, so half of Daly City is usually covered with fog, but it's pretty sunny near the mountain where I live. All of this makes deciding what to grow tough. What works at my friend's house in the city might not work for me here, despite being only ten minutes away. The only thing I know for sure is that tomatoes don't grow well. So now I know what not to plant! I was looking at seed catalogs both at home and online and started to feel overwhelmed. There were just too many choices. I began to think maybe I would just garden next year. Luckily the Universe stepped in and prodded me along.
A couple weekends ago Joey and I went to the San Francisco Flower and Garden show for my birthday. Among all the beautiful plants and exhibits we came across The Living Seed Company booth. It was a godsend. Not only are they local so they know what works in my area, they sell only open-pollenated, non-gentically engineered seeds. I wasn't hunting for this in particular, but it is something I am starting to become more aware of. The man there was really helpful and we went away with a large collection of seeds as you can see below.
Joey and I decided that since square foot gardening is all about planting a different crop in each square, we would do just that. We are going to plant a lot of different vegetables this year and see what works and what doesn't. This year is going to be our little experiment. Gardening should be like that - an experiment. At least that's what I think. We also decided that one planter was going to be dedicated to seeds exclusively from The Living Seed Company and the other garden was going to be from seeds we got elsewhere. That elsewhere turned out to be Target.
I know what you are thinking, from one extreme to the other. Here were are worrying about "open-polinated heirloom seeds" and now we are buying seeds along with dish soap and toilet paper. Well, I think that makes this little experiment all that more interesting. As a first time gardener I am curious to see what works and what doesn't including the seed source. Target carries Burpee seeds. I really haven't heard anything bad about them so I figured this was as good as anywhere else. As you can see, once again we bought a lot of different seeds, but we weren't done yet. Now we are off to Amazon to finish up!
Target didn't have any cauliflower and were out of eggplant. I am fully aware that neither are supposed to grow very well in Daly City, especially the cauliflower, but I want to try it anyway. Perhaps I have magical growing powers. You never know. Rounding things out were daikon. They just sound fun to grow.
So, I've got my seeds and now I can plant them. I wish! Now I have to decide where to put everything. For that I need a planner. I think I know just where to find one.
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