Vegetable Seeds - Flower Seeds

Seed selection is very important to the success of your garden. To experience a high rate of seed germination, it is important that you select seeds that are appropriate for your climatic conditions and geographic location. There is a huge assortment of flower seeds and vegetable seeds to choose from in most seed catalogs and they usually supply information on how to plant seeds, compatible hardiness zones and time of year to plant seeds. Choosing seeds that are appropriate for substantially different climatic conditions will only set you up for failure.

Selecting and How to Plant Seeds

If you are planting seeds saved from your previous garden, chances are that your flower seeds or vegetable seeds have already experienced some degree of success and have shown they do well in your location. You will want to use seeds from plants that are hardy and contain a good number of blooms. Seeds usually produce new plants that are quite similar to their parent plant. A good method to keep a record which plants to use for seeds is to mark and monitor your plants. 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 flower seeds or vegetable seeds to harvest for your next year's garden and the success of that year should be noted to indicate how to plant seeds again next year. Make note of planting locations, depths and watering techniques that were successful and apply again in following years. This will help you fine tune your practices.

If you are buying your seeds you won't be able to determine the qualities of the parent plant, but there are things that may indicate that the seed is high quality. Normally the size of the seed is an indication of it's quality. If you have some experience with a particular group of flower seeds or vegetable seeds, you will recognize the larger and healthier size of some seeds, indicationg the health of the parent plant. Look for plumpness or fullness of the seed. Using these 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 start the plant and carry it over to the point where root growth will provide adequate nourishement.

One thing to bear in mind regarding the viability of your seeds is their age. Seeds will only be viable for a few years. If you are buying your flower seeds or vegetable seeds you won't be able to establish true age of the seeds. If you buy from a reputable seed house or seed catalogs you should not have to worry about this. If you are saving your own seeds be sure you label when you saved them. In this manneryou will be able to use them before they reach an age where they lose their value. Another viability issue is to make sure the seeds are picked when they are mature. If seeds are harvested too early, it increases the chance that they will not germinate. Also some types of seeds should not be exposed to freezing temperatures although if they are naturally occurring in freezing climates, this should not be an issue.

With careful selection of your seeds you should have a beautiful garden of pretty flowers and nutritional vegetables.