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Published on 12/22/97

Selecting the Best Garden Varieties

How bountiful will your garden harvest be this spring?

You can't be certain since you can't predict the kind of growing season we'll have. But you can be certain that the better-adapted the varieties you plant, the better your chances of reaping a bountiful harvest.

Identifying the best varieties for your garden is one of the most crucial gardening tasks you face. How do you go about selecting the best varieties?

First, let's clarify the terms. Both "variety" and "cultivar" are commonly seen in print. Although in the strictest botanical sense, cultivar and variety have slightly different meanings, they are often used synonymously in the popular press.

Because most seed catalogs and gardeners prefer to use "variety," we will too. As used here, variety means a group of plants that are so alike they can be easily distinguished from other groups of plants within the same species.

Varieties may have different maturity dates; fruit sizes, shapes and colors; adapt to specific environments or other fruit or plant characteristics.

Your goal when selecting varieties is to find those that will perform best in your garden. By using some of these proven techniques, you can make variety selection easy and fun.

Begin early.

The best time to start selecting varieties for the next gardening season is the previous gardening season. Pay close attention to the varieties you plant, and make notes on their performance.

Outstanding varieties this year may well be the best varieties for next year. But you will need records, particularly variety name and the seed source. It's amazing the number of calls county extension agents get from gardeners saying: "Those beans I planted last year were the best ever, but I don't remember the name of that variety. Help!"

Check out seed catalogs.

Seed catalogs have pictures of some of the most beautiful vegetables you will ever see. In addition, they offer volumns of variety information. Just remember, some seed companies may be biased toward their own varieties.

Discuss varieties with gardening friends and neighbors.

Gardeners enjoy talking about their gardens, especially bragging on the high-yielding, high- quality varieties they've discovered. A visit with them in their garden during the garden season can prove especially helpful. See for yourself what looks the best to you.

Conduct your own scaled-down variety evaluation.

One of the best "hands-on" ways to learn about vegetable varieties is to try a few appealing varieties in your garden. If your garden is small, you can dedicate a few feet of row to new, interesting varieties. If you have a large garden, one or more rows can be used for trying out new varieties. Don't forget, for variety evaluations to be very helpful, you must keep good records.

Call your local county extension office.

A nearby, unbiased source of information is your county extension office. County agents can provide published information on vegetable varieties. In many cases, they may know from experience some of the best varieties for your area.

In searching for the best varieties for your garden, find those varieties that have good disease resistance, yield well and produce high quality vegetables. With a little effort, keen eyes, open ears and an open mind, you can select the very best varieties for your garden.

Make your next garden the best garden ever. Get a head start with the best varieties.

Darbie Granberry is a Cooperative Extension horticulturist with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Experts/Sources:
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