Seed selection can make or break your garden. If you choose the wrong seeds you can end up with a very pitiful looking garden. What goes into choosing the right seeds?

If you are saving your seeds from you own plants you have a little more control over what plants the seeds come from. You will want to choose plants that are hardy and contain a good number of blooms. Choosing seeds from a plant that is a little puny looking but with one or two very lovely blooms is not likely going to give you a plant that is hardy with more lovely blooms. Seeds usually produce plants like their parent plant. A good trick to know which plants to use for seeds is to look at your plants: size, hardiness, and blooms (or yields for vegetables). When you find the ones that exhibit the qualities you would like in your new plants tie a string on the plant, when it is harvest time you will know which ones to get the seeds from for your next year's garden.

If you are buying your seeds you don’t have as much control over the plants that the seeds come from, but there are things you can look for to choose the proper seeds. The first thing you should look at is size, the larger the better. The next thing would be the plumpness or fullness of the seed. Using these two indicators will give you more certainty of a good plant for your garden. Each part of a seed, called a cotyledon, stores the food that the little plant will need until its roots grow enough to do their job. So the larger and plumper the seed the more likely it is to have enough food to sustain the tiny plant.

One thing to consider for the viability of your seeds is their age. Seeds will only be viable for a few years. Of course if you are buying your seeds you have no control of this, but if you buy from a reputable seed house you should not have to worry about this. If you are saving your own seeds make sure you label when you saved them to be able to use them before they are no good. Another viability issue is to make sure the seeds are picked when they are mature, picked to early and they will not germinate. Also make sure the seeds are not frozen, if frozen most seeds will not germinate.

With careful consideration of your seeds you should have a beautiful garden full of blooms or with a plentiful bounty.

Rae Bennett