Hello! Don’t you just love it? That snow is shrinking! That warmer air (20’s and 30’s) sure felt great. And who ever thought that 20º would feel warm?

At any rate, it’s just what the doctor ordered! That cabin fever has been brought down to manageable levels for most of us, and the prognosis is good. Everyone is now firmly convinced that perhaps the worst is past, that perhaps spring will eventually come, eventually, someday, maybe perhaps, eventually. . .

But then again, what is the latest forecast – more cold, wicked winter weather? Here we go again! To paraphrase – Oh, the weather outside is frightful; but the fire’s so delightful. And since there’s no place to go, let it s…, let it s….. let is s…! Gees, just can’t seem to bring myself to say that sadistic “s” word. And, besides, it’s not true; we do have places to go.

Let’s go back to last week’s garden plan. Let’s go back to that box of leftover seeds. After all, we were sort of left holding the seed bag (oops – box). So let’s consider seed counts, not only to see if we have enough leftover seed for this season, but also to see if we’ve got to buy any new stuff.

Now some of those seed catalogs out there carry helpful lists of all the major vegetable varieties, telling us about spacing requirements for planting each kind of veggie ever invented. Very few will tell you how many seeds or plants that you will need to fit your garden rows. You usually have to do that math to figure that one out for yourself. And to make matters worse, every single seed packet out on the market seems to contain different amounts of seed. Every seed company packs different amounts of seed in their packets.

Take tomato seeds - they usually come packed in home-garden-sized packets of 1/16 of an ounce, or 1/32 of an ounce, or 1/64 of an ounce. OK, so just how many seeds does that make exactly? Keep in mind, tomato seed varies in size from one variety to another, even from one tomato to the other. You may get 24, or 29, or 36, or 41 seeds in a typical packet. Also keep in mind that all of the new, wonderful hybrid tomato varieties are more expensive seed. So those seed packets may only have 10 or 12 seeds in them. But, of course, you are not going to plant all of those tomato seeds (10, 12, 24,29, 36, 41), are you? On the other hand, if you like lots of spinach greens, but your seed packet only has 24 spinach seeds, then you will surely be disappointed.

Hey – you know that gardening is never easy. Well, even garden planning is never easy! So here are some quick numbers to serve as a guide for planning those garden rows.

Beans – 100 row feet of bean seed will give you 120 pounds of green beans. Hey – you don’t have 100-foot rows out in your garden, do you? So let’s crank it down a notch or two!

• A 10-foot bean row will give you 12 pounds of beans.

• A 10-foot row of beets will give you 15 pounds of beets

• 10 feet of broccoli = 10 pounds

• 10 feet of cabbage = 10 pounds

• 10 feet of carrots = 10 pounds

  • (Better plant more than 10 feet – everyone loves carrots!)

• 10 feet of Swiss chard = 8 pounds of tasty greens

• 10 feet of sweet corn should give you 10 dozen corn,

  • (But less than that if the raccoons find it first!)

• 10 feet of cukes pops out 12 pounds of pickles

• 10 feet of peppers = 6 pounds

• 10 feet of tomatoes = 10 pounds

• 10 feet of summer squash = 1 ton of zucchini (Just kidding!) = 15 pounds

Now this garden sounds rather prolific, but this still doesn’t answer that question – how many seeds or plants do we need? Inevitably, it all boils down to how close you do your plant spacing! Well, let’s stick to that 10-foot long garden row and do some more figuring.

• Beans – about 40 seeds if you plant them 3 inches apart

• Beets - about 40 seeds for the same 3 inch spacing

• Broccoli – 10 plants if spaced 12-18” apart

• Cabbage – 10 plants if spaced 12-18” apart

• Carrots – 60 seeds for 2” spacing

• Sweet corn – 20 seeds if planted 6” apart

  • (But you always have to plant sweet corn in blocks of 4 rows for good pollination, so you will need 80 sweet corn seeds)

  • (But if you have wild turkeys browsing around, then you’ll have to plant about 1000 seeds to get anything!)

• Cukes – 18 seeds if you do 3 to a hill with 24” apart spacing

• Garlic – 20-40 cloves

• Peppers – 6-10 plants

• Tomatoes – 6 plants spaced 24” apart

• Summer squash – 2-3 seeds in every hill spaced every 4 feet = 6-9 seeds

• Zucchini – just 1 seed (just kidding!)

  • 2-3 seeds in every hill for 4’ spacing = 6-9 seeds

  • More than that and you can feed your whole town! (Just kidding, just kidding!)

But I am not kidding when we say that we are again out of time for this week! And I am not kidding when I suggest counting all those leftover garden seeds. Always figure on having more seed when you do a seed count for calculating those seeds per row. Not all of them will sprout! I am not kidding when I say to test those germination rates for all those old seeds so that they will not disappoint you when very few of them come up this season.

Please call Cornell Cooperative Extension of Lewis County – 376-5270 or stop on by for your very own mini-gardening guide loaded with great planting hints and tips.

Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!

D