Farmer Nathan and I love browsing seed catalogs in the winter, dreaming of our summer garden, and possibly getting carried away with our seed orders. (We can’t be the only ones! 😉 ) We’re always excited to try new varieties, colors, and flavors…but some cultivars aren’t happy to meet us and our good and steamy Southern summers. The Southeast has its own special set of growing challenges, so it pays to learn what to look for in seed catalogs to have gardening success.
If your southern vegetable garden is anything like ours, you’ve probably had more than one vegetable variety you were excited about germinate perfectly, grow happily…and then decide it isn’t worth the trouble to survive by mid-July. For us bell peppers have been our bane. All I want is a lovely harvest of sweet colorful bell peppers for fresh eating and freezing a few baggies. Two years ago I realized that the seed I had purchased came from way above 36th parallel. Ah, yes, you sweet seeds were 100% NOT prepared for South Carolina. Bugs, blight, sun scald, oh my!
Thus began the hunt for seeds grown in similar climates or at least claimed to grow well under hot, humid, bug-ridden conditions. Over time we started shifting our seed purchasing strategy to varieties that better suited our climate and were open-pollinated to allow us to save seeds to adapt them even more to our specific patch of earth.
If you’re new to gardening or this is your first season down South there are a few things to look for when browsing those tempting seed catalogs in the middle of winter. Below are some tips of what to look for in seed catalogs
What to look for in seed catalogs
Pest resistance
Farmer Nathan grew up in Michigan which meant the killing frost and a deep winter freeze meant pest populations were kept relatively under control. Since moving his farm down South six years ago, he discovered that you need more than a pocket guide to insects to identify all the creepy-crawlies! Even if your kids beg to differ, the bugs will *love* your vegetables. In the descriptions of each variety look for keywords like resists squash bugs, pest resistance, or other clues that the variety can handle some nibbling.
Disease resistance
A long growing season combined with high humidity is a recipe for issues. From downy mildew to early blight, late blight, and other molds, bacteria, and fungi. When browsing seed catalogs, keep an eye out for phrases like downy mildew resistant, late blight tolerant, resists mosaic virus, and so on.
Heat tolerance
Like our aforementioned bell peppers, some cultivars and vegetables don’t appreciate the heat or it signals time to reproduce and call it quits. When wanting to push the salad green season, look for varieties that are slow to bolt or don’t immediately go to seed when the weather warms up. For root crops like carrots, look for varieties that stay sweet even without the cooler nights. Other clues to keep an eye out for include: hardy in adverse conditions, drought tolerant, specially bred for hot climates, etc.
Heirlooms or Local Varieties
If a particular variety has been growing in your area for over a hundred years or even just a few decades then odds are it will grow great for you too! Most seed catalogs that carry heirloom varieties will list their original seed source. Whether it was developed by Jane Doe of your County or if it was the variety grandma has grown for the last 50 years. For example, there was a retired horticultural professor in our region that collected heirloom seeds from our area and now many regional seed suppliers carry these hyper-local heirloom varieties. Other key phrases to look out for in the seed catalogs include: developed by Clemson (or other ag university) or commonly grown in Georgia (or a place near your location with similar growing conditions).
Daylight Needs
One last thing to keep in mind when browsing seed catalogs is the daylight requirements of some vegetables, specifically those in the allium-family. For example, depending on where you live, you’ll be looking for long-day or short-day onion varieties. In the South, winter days are relatively short compared to the northern states. So if we tried to grow a long-day onion, we’d never get any bulb development because we just don’t have enough sunlight. So pick an onion variety that is suited for your region.
Make use of your local extension office’s website
We happen to live not too far from Clemson University and their college of agriculture have handy fact sheets for just about all the common vegetables to grow available for free on their website. For example, their page on tomatoes provides a list of recommended cultivars common plant diseases around here along with other common issues that may pop up when trying to grow tomatoes in South Carolina. Even if you want to avoid hybrids and pesticides, much can be gleaned from their growing guides.
Find more vegetable growing guides and tips on our blog.
