Winter is a wonderful time to reflect on your intentions, plan an amazing garden, preserve biodiversity and source and select high quality open-pollinated seeds!
― Robert Louis Stevenson
A Time for Inquiry
As the Winter Solstice passes and the cold and dormant season truly sets in, we are finally afforded a much-needed respite. We can pause and consider the challenges we have faced in the garden; our failures, successes, and the beauty inherent in exchanging our energy with a small patch of earth.
It’s a wonderful time to reflect upon what we want from our garden. A nutrient-rich source of food for the table? A habitat for pollinators and wildlife? A way to build community? A pathway to health, healing, and wellness? A source of privacy, shade, and moisture? A botanical refuge and oasis? All of the above?
Plant What you Eat
It can be easy to get carried away. I know I’m not the first gardener to find themselves wading through an overgrown jungle of green beans and tomatoes. So take some time to think about what each plant will require in terms of light, space, temperature, water, and labor. Plant what you like to eat! What vegetables usually grace your dinner plate?
Plan which crops you will eat fresh, dry, can, or freeze. If you have livestock that can feed off fruits and vegetables you can grow extra crops for them too. Maybe you have a community seed swap, school garden, or neighbors with whom you can donate or trade your excess. Seeds lose some of their viability every year, . The best way to keep them alive isn’t by keeping them in a box but by letting them grow! If you need a little inspiration, look no further than the new year’s freshly published seed catalogs.
Selecting Seeds
There is something joyous about the bright and colorful pages heavy with every shape and shade of squash, bean, and melon. This is a fantastic time to create a planting plan for the year, take inventory of which seeds you already have or want, and make sure you have all the necessary supplies you will need. A garden journal is a wonderful tool to keep track of your fertilizer and irrigation schedules, and maps showing where and when you planted what, especially important if you are implementing crop rotation techniques.
Days to Maturity
Consider which seeds are best started indoors or in the greenhouse, and which will be best sown directly into the garden beds once the last danger of frost has passed. Heat mats are highly effective at getting a jump start on the season. Different seeds will need to be planted in different months depending on your specific climate zone. Do your research and try to select varieties adapted to your local environment. Calculate how long your growing season is and select seeds that can mature to harvest within that time frame. If you are in the low or high desert elevations you might have two shorter growing seasons instead of one long one. Coastal gardens might also fare better with shorter-season varietals that don’t require as much heat.
Seeds for the Future
Seeds are one of our most precious resources. They contain a living blueprint of our past and ensure the survival of our future. Large-scale commercial operations usually favor only a few varieties that travel well and have a long shelf life, even if they are not the tastiest, most nutrient-rich, or hardiest varieties. Small farmers and backyard gardeners don’t have these limitations and can choose between growing a vast array of hybrids, heirlooms, and open-pollinated seeds. These growers play a powerful role in the preservation of botanical biodiversity, allowing plants to better adapt to their local environment with every successive generation.
Open Pollinated vs Hybrid vs Heirloom Seeds
Sometimes the different names for seeds can be confusing. There are many fantastic hybrids (often called F1 hybrids) that have been bred for favorable characteristics, but you cannot save the seed, their offspring will not be true to type. Open-pollinated seeds are either self- or cross-pollinated by insects, birds, or wind. Plants that can cross-pollinate with similar species need to be isolated if you are going to save true seed. Or, just grow it without anything that can cross-pollinate it. For example, beets can cross-pollinate with chard, broccoli with kale, etc. Saving true seed from an open-pollinated sunflower requires that it not be close to other types of sunflowers blooming at the same time. Heirlooms are treasured open-pollinated varietals that are usually more than fifty years old.
Organic & Non-GMO Seeds
Organic seed certification can be a costly process, and this cost is often passed on to the consumer. If keeping your garden chemical-free is a priority , but buying certified organic seeds is out of your budget, avoid seeds marked as treated (which implies an application of fungicide). By cultivating your seeds with organic gardening practices, you can maintain the integrity of your organic garden.
Most of the packaged herb, vegetable, and flower seed available to small growers is non-GMO, but it is becoming more popular for seed companies to include this on their labels. The common genetically engineered and patented seeds most often utilized by commercial growers at this time are corn, soybeans, sugarbeets, canola, alfalfa, papaya, and cotton. They have been designed to withstand the application of pesticides and herbicides. It is usually illegal for farmers to save these seeds, and the pollen is capable of drifting and cross-pollinating with nearby similar GMO crops.
The major problem apparent with this style of large-scale food cultivation, as time goes on, is mounting evidence that these pesticides and herbicides negatively impact the health of our bodies, the soil, and the pollinators we rely on for our survival. Diversity, not mono-culture, breeds resilience (think Irish Potato famine). By planting and saving a variety of open-pollinated seeds, we can preserve the diversity of our ecosystems, and our resilience to pests, disease, and a changing climate. We can support our pollinators, and keep our right to save seeds from plants we have cultivated intact.
Golden Valley Botanical Dryland Seeds
We have several different types of homegrown seeds in the shop that are featured below, and many more different varieties on the way. Here are three water-wise and heat-tolerant plants that are excellent for supporting pollinators and providing beauty, shade, habitat, and shelter. To learn more about seed germination, check out ‘Germinating Palo Verde Seeds‘.
Colorado Four O’Clock
This tuberous Southwest native has an amazing capacity for tolerating desert heat and alkaline soil, blooming profusely from early Spring until finally succumbing to the frosts, sleeping for the Winter, and coming back larger and more prolific the following Spring. It acts as a fragrant, colorful, and sprawling groundcover Perennial, attracting bees, butterflies, quail, hummingbirds, and moths. It is incredibly water-wise once established, requiring only deep intermittent waterings during the hottest months, and rewards the observer with a second flush of blossoms after the Summer Monsoons. The flowers open late in the afternoon and bloom throughout the night, closing again as the sun rises the following morning. I cannot recommend this plant enough to arid-land gardeners. Read more about the Colorado Four O’Clock on my blog, or purchase the seeds directly from my shop.
Desert Willow
If you are looking for an extremely heat tolerant flowering tree to act as a windbreak, provide shade, beauty, and attract pollinators, the Desert Willow is a Southwest Native you can’t pass by. They are incredibly low maintenance and respond well to pruning and shaping. When left to their own devices they can create an understory of foliage that rabbits and quail love. We harvested our seed from this white and violet-centered variety, but Chilopsis linearis can also come in hues of deeper pinks and purples. Read more about Chilopsis linearis here, or purchase the seeds directly from my shop.
Catclaw Acacia
Catclaw Acacia is a thorny and long-lived native shrub that is great for restoring disturbed sites without access to supplemental irrigation, and as a living security and privacy barrier along fencelines. I don’t recommend this for smaller gardens because of its spiky branches, but for larger properties or natural areas undergoing revegetation, it is worthy of inclusion. While this plant is most valued for its ability to withstand drought and heat, the yellow blossoms and curled seed pods are strikingly beautiful. Read more about Acacia senegalia here.
Other Seed Sources
If you are unable to collect, save or trade for the seed you need, these are some other resources for high-quality vegetable, herb & flower seeds:
Native Seeds/SEARCH
A nonprofit focused on the preservation of arid-adapted Southwest crop diversity to help increase food security and sustainable farming within Indigenous communities. They maintain a seed bank with many critically endangered varieties and are a fantastic resource for the desert gardener. Based in Tucson, Arizona.
Alliance of Native Seedkeepers
A benefit corporation and Indigenous American-led source for ethically sourced/fair trade seed that supports the environment, social justice, and the preservation of indigenous culture. Based in Skaroreh Katenuaka Tuscarora Nation of Indians land, North Carolina.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
North America’s largest provider of heirloom seeds that works with many different non-profits to provide food security, sustainable development, and education. Their catalog is amazing and they have many unique varieties. Based in Mansfield, Missouri.
Territorial
A private company that has been providing high-quality seed for over forty years, including organic, non-GMO, and biodynamic varieties. Based in Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Feel free to share some of your favorite seed starting tips and tricks and any good seed sources not yet included. Happy Planting!
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