The following Horticulture article originally printed in the 2018 Spring edition of the Oldham County Extension Newsletter.

Spring Seed Choices

Spring is coming, and it’s time to choose flowers and vegetables for our gardens. A good way to narrow down the thousands of seed choices is to look for the All-American Selections. These varieties have been grown and evaluated in test gardens in many regions throughout the United States and proven choices. The All-America Selection website allows you to sort and view varieties using different filters including year, type, and region. Information about performance is also available.

Among the 2018 All-American Selection vegetable winners for 2018 is Sweet Corn American Dream. An excellent germinator with tender, super sweet kernels, American Dream matures slightly earlier than other sweet corn varieties. The vigorous plants produce cobs that have a good fill of bi-color kernels.

One of the flower winners was French marigold Super Hero Spry. Super Hero Spry is compact (10-12 inches) with dark maroon lower petals and golden yellow upper petals setting on top of the dark green foliage. The blooms are more uniform with a stable color pattern, bloom earlier, and require no deadheading.

The All-American Selections are identified in the seed catalogs and have been staples in gardens for many years. It is fun browsing through the many seed catalogues, checking out all the choices, looking for something different to grow. The All-American Selection is one of many tools to help make seed choices.

Written by Michael Boice, Oldham County Horticulture Extension Assistant. Edited by Lauren Fernandez, Oldham County Extension Staff Assistant.