The Amell Family Blog

Where I Get My Seeds

With my order coming in from West Coast Seeds, I decided now would be a great time to go over the plan for the garden for summer 2023! Most of my seeds are ordered from West Coast Seeds and then I fill in the gaps with Veseys Seeds for anything that is not available from West Coast Seeds. If you want to save seeds for future planting, then you will want to order open-pollinated seeds, which the majority of my seeds are. The reason for this is that open-pollinated seeds have a reliable grow pattern for future seasons whereas hybrid seeds are not predictable and the trait you enjoy from that hybrid seed may not appear next season. You can also grow heirloom/heritage seeds and essentially they are like open-pollinated seeds, but the seeds have been around for more than 50 years!
West Coast Seeds have a huge selection of organic seeds and open-pollinated seeds. Every seed I have planted from them has germinated and produced tons of vegetables for me! So, if you are looking for a great company to order seeds from then I encourage you to check them out! They are Canadian and operate in the British Columbia!

Now to get down to the nitty-gritty of planning the garden for summer 2023! Since Josh is off this summer, I plan on doing many family activities this summer! For this reason, I want to plant a simpler garden compared to last year. We are planning on planting mainly root crops that we can plant and leave until it is time to harvest them towards the end of the summer. We will plant a few other plants that will require regular harvests which is okay because we are going to be around the house and can harvest these. I just do not want to spend all of my time in the garden this summer.

Planning our garden

I always plan my garden in January so that I can order my seeds early and am prepared for starting seeds indoors when I need to. Onion seeds need to be started very early! Like mid-January early! For this reason, it is nice to have my list of crops I want to plant finished within that first week of January. I use the Almanac calendar to find out when I should start seeds. Just input your postal code and it will give you the best information for your area! You can plant by the moon or frost dates with this website! It also lets you know when to start your seeds inside if you are starting them inside, when to sow them outside, and when to transplant them outside! I then input my planting calendar into the calendar on my phone. I organize it by when I need to start seeds indoors, start seeds outdoors, and when to transplant the indoor plants into the garden. Since I am THAT organized type of person, it is also colour coordinated in my calendar. Blue means I start a seed inside, and green means that it goes outside whether that is by direct sowing or transplanting.

This year I am moving away from the plug containers and using either those plastic containers that strawberries come in, or reusable plastic cups. I found it annoying last year to start seeds in the plug containers and then transplant them to the reusable plastic cups within a couple weeks. This is an experiment, by the way, so if it does not work then I guess we are back to those plug trays. I am going to use the watering trays though. They are very convenient for watering purposes and keeping my plant area mess-free. I do need to figure out which room is going to be my plant room this year since Joseph and Jordanna’s bedroom is the room I used last year to start all of my plants in. I love this Indoor Greenhouse for starting my seeds! The 5 shelves gives you so much room to set your trays on to start your seeds. My trays overhung the shelves because I fit 3 across per shelf and that was not a problem at all either! My favourite grow lights to use are these Likesuns 1000w grow lights because you can adjust the height of the light and the plants that were under them grew so well and strong, but these LED light strips also worked well for me last year.

2023 Crops we are growing

Here is a list of the crops we are going to grow this year. Most seeds are open-pollinated seeds and I have created links for all of them for you. That way you can check out what I’m growing and see my favourite seeds. If they are not open-pollinated seeds, then they will eventually be replaced with open-pollinated when I run out. Any seeds that I had on hand that were from the grocery store will be used, but I linked the seeds that I will be replacing them with.

• Garlic: this was planted in the Fall of 2022. I very quickly dug 3 trenches and threw the garlic cloves into them. I did not pay attention to spacing or planting depth. I just wanted to get them in. The garlic cloves were from my harvest from 2022 which was started in the Fall of 2021 and were ordered from Veseys. So we will see this year how well they grow forward from season to season and how well they will produce for us!
• Onions: I have a vendetta with onions! I started onion seeds last year and they did nothing. I have tried to research how to grow onions and there just is not a lot of information regarding how to start onions from seeds, the cycle onions grow in, whether you harvest onions in their first or second year of growth, etc. So now I am more determined than ever to grow onions from seeds and create a little guide for myself and for you to successfully grow onions from and learn how to save seeds to continue to grow each year.
• Potatoes: I honestly just grabbed the 10-lb bags of potatoes from the grocery store and left them in the kitchen to sprout. Once they sprouted, I planted them and they grew fairly well! We had enough potatoes to eat for a couple of months using our own potatoes, and we eat a lot of potatoes! I plan on doing this next year, but purchasing them about 1 month or more before I am going to plant them to give them plenty of time to sprout.
• Beets: Detroit Supreme
• Pumpkins: Howden and Magic Lantern *hybrid seed* for carving, and Small Sugar for preserving for cooking and baking.
• Squash: Waltham Butternut and Zucchini
• Corn: Sugar Buns *hybrid seed*
• Leeks: Bandit
• Green Onions: Ramrod
• Tomatoes: San Marzano and Roma VF
• Sweet Peppers: California Wonder
• Hot Peppers: Cayenne Long Slim and Chile De Arbol and Ring of Fire
• Spinach: New Zealand
• Lettuce: Super Gourmet Salad Blend
• Swiss Chard: Celebration
• Kale: Winter Blend *open-pollinated and hybrid seeds*, but once these seeds are gone I will be going with Dwarf Green Curled
• Bush Beans: Taylor Horticultural and Tricolour Bean Blend
• Shelling Peas: Green Arrow
• Snap Peas: Super Sugar Snap
• Quinoa: Brightest Brilliant
• Rosemary
• Cumin
• Basil: Dolce Fresca
• Dill: Dukat Dill
• Oregano
• Parsley: Forest Green
• Thyme
• Savory: Summer Savory

Now that I look at this giant list of crops I want to plant, I should definitely use the garden planner to plan this out! I have used the Farmer’s Almanac Garden Planner in the past and really enjoyed it! It helps you with spacing your plants out and completely planning your garden. I went so far as to measure out my garden last year to optimize space for crops in my garden and I was able to put a lot of crops in my garden! I was going to wing it this year, but now I am thinking I should probably use the planner to ensure I have enough room for everything and the planner tells you how many plants of each crop you can get within a certain area! This is super convenient for seed starting purposes in my opinion. That way you don’t start 150 tomato plants on a whim, like I did last year! It lists the planting depth of seeds, plant spacing and row spacing for you so if you want to use a garden planner that does all the work for you then I encourage you to check it out!

experiment for fall 2023

I have an experiment for Fall of 2022 that I am going to be recording over the course of the year. I intend to overwinter Walla Walla onions! I am going to do this in two ways. I will start seeds this month (January) with the rest of my onion seeds that I want to plant this year. Then when the Fall harvest is complete and I am planting my garlic for summer of 2024, I will plant the onion plants I started in January. Then I will also plant a row of Walla Walla seeds. Then we will see how each row does; one row being grown from a seed and one row being grown from a plant that is about 9 months old. I think this is going to help me understand the grow cycle of the onion and help me figure out how to grow onions from seeds so that I can help you grow onions from seeds too! Starting crops from seeds that are saved from last year’s harvest is a very inexpensive way to garden! I may also start some seeds in January to plant with my Kelsae onions just to see how they do outside. This whole onion business is very confusing, but my goal this year is to make some progress on learning how to grow these dang things!

Listen to the blog audio here!

If you are planting a garden I would love to hear about what you plan on planting, where your favourite place to buy seeds is, and what you plan to do with your harvest!