Growing and eating your own vegetables is one of the delights of having a garden. Not only can you grow delicious, interesting, and nutritious food but engaging in the work of vegetable gardening can bring you into embodied community with non-human nature and other people (I know I sound like a grad student but it’s true!). For some people the outcome of vegetable gardening (i.e. delicious veggies) is what the work is all about, for me it is the process. I love feeling my hands and feet in the soil, watching pollinators at work, and experiencing the magic of seeds sprouting.
February and March are the months (in the Northern hemisphere) to start buying your seeds and planning your annual vegetable garden. I live in the Great Lakes region of North America and usually start seeds indoors by mid-to-late March, although many seeds I direct sow into the ground in May. If you have limited space, some of the best veggies to start indoors are tomatoes, pepper, and cucumbers.
Before buying your seeds, take out your garden journal and answer these questions:
- What veggies and herbs do I (or my household members) love to eat? These are ideal veggies to grow!
I have made the mistake of growing veggies that no one in my family really likes to eat. While I absolutely advocate being experimental and trying new things, if your garden grows abundantly, you will have a lot of waste if you grow things you don’t actually want to eat. I once planted a ton of daikon radish, I couldn’t give it away and only wanted to eat it in small amounts. I have not made that mistake again.
2. What veggies do I love to eat but already buy in enough abundance from my farmer or farmer’s market? These are ones to consider NOT growing.
I really enjoy spending time at a farmer’s market in my city. In previous years I have also been part of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. I have found that some veggies come into abundance at all these locations (market, backyard, farm) at the exact same time leading to food going bad in my fridge. Of course rotten food always goes into my composter and is returned to the Earth but it is better to have it go into my body! Some veggies go bad quickly and I may not able to eat or process (can, freeze) them at the time they come into abundance. If you enjoy buying certain veggies directly from a farmer, you might not want to grow those veggies in at all or in large quantities in your backyard.
3. What veggies are expensive to buy organic? These are ideal veggies to grow!
I am committed to buying veggies from small-scale (when I can) and organic (almost always) farmers. This means that there are some veggies I don’t eat very often because they are either hard to find organic or very expensive organic. For me, peppers is an example of a veggie that falls into this category. This is a vegetable I like to grow in abundance in my gardens.
4. What veggies are so amazing and delightful that I will feel joy when I grow them in my garden and eat them? Grow these veggies!
Some veggies just make me happy and these are the ones I am especially excited about growing. For example, lemon cucumbers are cute and delightful; eating fresh tomatoes while in my garden brings me great joy; and the experience of watching winter squash fruit grow over many months is awe-inspiring. Find the veggies that make you happy and grow them.
Vegetable gardening, in my experience, is the most labour-intensive form of gardening. That is why it’s important to grow veggies that you will love and appreciate. The next step, after you decide what you are going to grow is to decide where you are going to get your seeds. I think it is important to buy seeds that are heirloom (older varieties that have been grown in particular regions), organic (grown without pesticides), and open-pollinated (i.e. not hybrids, which means the next generation of seed will be viable). It is not always possible to find seeds that check all these boxes but if you search for small, independent seed companies, you will likely find some fantastic varieties. I like to buy my seeds from Urban Harvest, located in Southern Ontario. Find a small seed company in your bioregion and support it! I usually don’t make supporting companies part of my permaculture work but it is urgently important that we keep seeds in the hands of gardeners, farmers, and independent seed companies and out of the hands of large agrochemical corporations.
Open-pollinated seeds, for example, allow you to save the seeds from your harvest, grow them again the following year and share them with others. Although it may not seem like it, saving seeds is radical, righteous activism. Even though you will initially purchase your seeds from somebody, learning how to collect, save, and SHARE them means you can help keep seeds a commons of humanity. In late February and early March, Seedy Saturday events take place across Canada (and maybe the U.S.?). Try to find one in your community. They are a perfect place to buy seeds, share seeds, and meet other passionate gardeners!
The Re-enchantment 
Thanks for your post Becky, I’m learning a lot from you and excited for spring to come when I can plant again. We have a tiny garden in the backyard, but still fun to grow veggies. However, last year many of them didn’t grow, I think because the house blocked much of the afternoon sun. I’m still trying to figure that out.
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That afternoon sun is needed by many veggies but an option is to plant peas, leafy greens, and root veggies who don’t need as much sun as vegetables like tomatoes, squash and peppers.
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Ok thank you so much Becky. You are right–we tried peppers and tomatoes last year. Neither did well. We will try the ones you mentioned, and do some reading on this!
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