- So, as a vegetable gardener,
one of my core focuses is how can I squeeze
as much food as possible into the space I have.
I know things like soil health make a massive difference,
understanding different kind of planting methods
and spacing between plants.
But there's one thing that can make a massive difference
and it might not be what you're expecting.
Now, we all have our own favorites
or go to varieties of vegetables.
Perhaps they taste great
or they're suitable for smaller spaces
or we know that we're gonna get
consistent results from them.
For example, I always grow the beetroot variety
of Boltardy every single year
'cause I know I'm gonna get consistent results.
Now, what if I told you that one of the best ways
of increasing the yields from your green space
is to push the practicalities of gardening to one side
and instead focus on the abundance of vegetable varieties
we have to choose from in order to optimize the way
that we garden?
In previous years, when I sit down
and I do the annual seed order,
I find it really easy to just go through
and buy all of the seeds that I'm familiar with,
all of the varieties.
But I realized that I'm actually missing out
from discovering and finding new opportunities
'cause I'm stuck in that comfort zone.
You see, the great thing about each individual variety
is that it has its own characteristics
that define and distinguish it
from the other varieties of that particular crop.
Perhaps it has an interesting color,
maybe it has a kind of quirky flavor,
It could be a fast maturing or heavy cropping.
This year, I've decided to do something different.
Instead of choosing the main variety
and then perhaps another variety to grow as well,
I'm choosing a small handful of crops
and I'm attempting to grow as many different varieties
as possible of these crops.
And I'm gonna be growing these
alongside the controlled variety
or the one that I'm most familiar with
in order to do a comparison
so I can find out which varieties stand out to me the most
and which ones give me better results.
Now, what is better?
Well, better couldn't mean anything,
it's really down to your individual growing goals.
But the great thing about trying different varieties
is no matter what your goal is,
no matter what you want to get from your garden,
you will get results that will make a positive difference.
If you choose say, a handful of crops each season
to try a new varieties alongside say your current
or your favorite varieties,
and it's not gonna take you long
to build a go-to list of varieties bespoke to your garden,
your goals, and also your climate.
Now I'll just stop for a minute
and imagine your garden
full of all of your A-list varieties.
How different would that look?
How different would that feel from today?
I'm just very much at the start of this
but I think it's a fun journey
and I invite you to come along.
But how exactly do we get started with experimenting
and testing to find the real gems of the varieties
that we want to grow?
To start with, I would suggest that you ignore leafy salads
and instead focus on the core staples of the garden.
These are the things like Kale, Onions
Pod Beans, Carrots, and Potatoes.
Now you want to pick around three or four nominated crops.
For me, this year is going be Kale, Fennel, and Leeks.
Once you've chosen your nominated crops,
the next thing to do is to make a note of what is
either your current favorite variety
of that particular crop or is that default one,
the one that you find yourself growing every single season.
Now, for example, my default Kale crop
or variety is going to be Dwarf Green Curled.
Now, once you've made a note of that,
it's now time for you to check out
your favorite seed suppliers either through their catalogs
or go onto their websites
and read through all of the varieties that they have
with that particular crop.
And you need to be reading these
with kind of the question or the goal of,
"Could this potentially become my new default,
my new favorite?"
Now you want to choose at least four other varieties
to try out alongside your default.
But if you have more space,
then I encourage you to maybe try five, six,
potentially seven different varieties.
In front of me here is the Brassica seed beds.
This is my preferred way of starting Brassica seed leggings.
They can be close and intensive
and then I'll transplant them out into their final position.
So along with Dwarf Green Curled Kale,
I'm growing six other Kale varieties
which are Hungry gap kale, Cottages kale, Red Russian,
Dazzling blue, Asparagus kale, and East Friesian Palm kale.
My core focus of trying these different variations of Kale
is to not only find ones that work really well
in terms of winter hardiness,
but also to compare their flavor.
So whatever crop you've decided
to try with the different varieties,
you want to grow that default variety
along with the other varieties
in the exact same way as possible.
For example, starting off all of my Kale in the same place
and then transplanting them into the same ways bed.
You want there to be as much consistency
as possible with the growing.
The reason why you want this consistency
is because it's gonna give you a far more
accurate representation when it comes to comparing
and contrasting and seeing if there are any
that really stand out.
One other really important things that you've got to do
to make the tests or the experiment as fair as possible
is to grow multiple plants of the same variety.
By having multiple plants, you'll get a more accurate
and fair representation of each variety.
And it's gonna make it a lot easier for you
to compare the different ones
versus just growing one plant of each.
Chances are that is not gonna give you a proper fair result.
When it comes to harvesting,
you can either take into account
the observational differences, the weight differences,
or the yield, and also the taste differences.
Or you can compare all three.
Now, another thing that I recommend you look up,
is how healthy is each variety looking?
Are there any that are showing particular weakness
such as extra past damage?
It's really important I think to have an overall view
so you can make a far more kind of informed decision
on what is in your opinion, the ultimate variety
that you want to grow.
Once you've harvested all of the varieties
of the particular crop, and you've made the notes,
you now want to run these through a process of elimination.
The goal with this is to find the best performing variety
that you've grown out of the mix.
Now, in front of me here, I've got, I mean, Onion beds
and most of these onions are Sturon
because I've been testing different onion varieties,
I found that Sturon has performed the best here
which is why it's a stapled variety of onions
that I'm now growing.
Once you have your chosen variety,
you want to make a note of it on an A-list,
your variety A-list.
Now for me, this is something that I'll use
whenever I'm creating an annual seed order.
You could use a notepad,
but for me I'm gonna use something like Google Docs
because I have countless note pads
and I don't wanna risk losing this list.
Now for me, gardening is not just about productivity,
but also enjoyment.
So I'd actually recommend
that you create a second list such as a specialist list.
These might not be your staple varieties,
but these should be varieties that, you know,
a little bit of special,
perhaps there's something like a Queen's
and flowered Broad Bean or an Albino Beetroot,
just something that you enjoy growing
because I think it's really important to have a list of the,
of the varieties that truly excite you.
So you're both covering productive varieties,
but also the ones that bring you a little joy
and magic into your gardening.
This list of varieties is very much gonna be unique to you
and it's gonna help you to optimize the way that you garden
in order to hit the goals that you set.
So if you just do a small handful of crops
every single year,
quite soon you're gonna build a clear picture
of those kind of stand up varieties.
And you can just imagine the kind of positive impact
that's gonna bring to your gardening.
Now, one thing to know is that
you should also be flexible with it.
It can be a list that changes constantly
because maybe in a few years time,
your friend tells you,
who lives down the road about this new Kale variety,
you give it a go and you're just blown away by it.
So I think being open to change
but having that kind of go-to resources tailored for you
is one of the most rewarding things
and one of the best investments
that you can put into your gardening journey.
So when you're growing the different varieties,
it's really important to obviously label them.
But I also like to keep the empty seed pockets back.
So if the label slightly rubs off
and I can only see a couple of letters,
I've got that as a reference point.
But also, I really like to make sure
that I write down the varieties on my planting plan.
Summer is just around the corner
and that means the first of the harvest.
And when you harvest something, there's an empty gap.
And if you're struggling with creating
a really effective planting plan
where it allows you to plan it ahead
and have a monthly outlook on your garden
in order to do things like succession planting
to increase your productivity,
I've got an online course, it's really affordable
and it's around 10 lessons
showing you how to create a productive month by month
planting plan that offers you a seamless transition
into the following growing season as well.
So if you wanna find out more, there'll be a link down below
and there's a coupon code for 20% off using plan 20.
And I really hope you find it useful.
One of the great things about gardening
is that there are so many different ways
that we can utilize to increase the productivity
and the enjoyment of our growing spaces.
And I hope this video has given you
a slightly different angle, a slightly different approach
that you can take towards creating
that long-term gardening dream that you have.
So if you have any further questions,
please don't hesitate to ask me
down below in the comments section.
And I look forward to seeing you guys again soon.