You are lucky because you live right near Pinetree Garden Seeds. They can help choose the best varieties for this area. They have at least one Certified Master Gardener on staff.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pinetree Garden Seeds

wow, i guess i do. i just visited their website and i will give them a call.

thank you

You may want to try some garlic, you would plant that right now before the ground freezes, mulch with about 6 inches of straw to kkep weeds now next season.

In addition to your other choices, you may want to try is potatoes in the spring as these 2 crops grow well in Maine!

All the vegetables you listed above will do great and are fairly easy to grow. You can get spacing information from the seed packets, and you can modify that into "square foot gardening" in your beds. The only thing I would suggest is to grow the "small" tomatoes outside of your beds in a large container. 4' x 4' (x2) is a fairly small area. Even the "small" type tomato plants grow quite large, and by mid-summer will be sprawling over and shading the other plants in your beds. Even with good pruning and staking, I think the tomato plants will take up too much room to leave for other things that can more easily be squeezed into your limited space. Pinetree sells, or at least used to, a cherry-type tomato called 'Tiny Tim' that is one of the more compact ones. I grew it in a 3 gallon container and it still sprawled a bit.

The other advice I can give you is to make sure your soil in the beds is optimal by working in lots of compost, etc.

You might want to build a trellis on the north side of the beds and plant cucumbers or some climbing beans or butternut squash. You can train them to grow up the trellis. That should save alot on space.

As far as vegetable varieties, I would suggest trying the sungold cherry tomates. They are a real treat.

Good Luck,
Silver Queen

thanks to all. i just got a pinetree catalog on saturday and thumbed through it. i will check out the sungold and tiny tim tomatoes. there was one variety i was looking at that i think was called gardener's delight or something to that effect. any thoughts on it vs. the two mentioned?
also, after looking at how many seeds are available, i was thinking that on some of the veggies, it would makes sense to get "pinetree mixes" - peppers, hot peppers, lettuce. have any of you tries these mixes, and if so, how did they work out?
regarding tomato planting, do you think a 5 gallon bucket would be adequate, or should i look into getting something a bit larger?

thanks again

I don't like mixes because when you're planting, you can't tell which seed is which, therefore you don't know what you're going to get, how big the plant will be, etc. In the "pepper mix" one seed might be a large pepper plant, one may be small, one may be hot, etc. and you won't know until they near maturity. I don't like surprises in the garden. Esp. in square foot/limited space gardening, if you know ahead of time how large the plant will be, you can adjust your spacing. With a mix you need to give all the plants the maximum spacing. I once did Pinetree's "cabbage mix", which worked out ok in the end, but during growing I had a few small (mini) cabbages and some large (huge) cabbage heads growing side by side. Something smaller and more uniform, like lettuce, wouldn't be as much a problem in a mix.

Pinetree pkts. contain less seed than most seed companies, and their prices are lower. (adjusted for the home gardener that doesn't need to, say, plant 5,000 carrots in a season). You can also store the seed packets in the fridge, which will keep them viable for many years.

veilchen, you bring up a good point which i hadn't considered. maybe the lettuce i won't worry about as much - what about spinach varieties and sweet/hot peppers? any suggestions?

another question i have you touched on - shelf life of the seeds themselves. let's assume that i buy seeds right now. will they keep until spring if i put them in the refrigerator, or is it best to wait and buy in the spring?

For spinach, I don't think variety matters as much around here. It does like to grow in cool weather, though, so plant it in early spring or in late summer to grow in the fall. I've been growing 'Tyee'.

Peppers are a different story. There are so many kinds, and I have found (and heard other northerners report) that most of the "bell" peppers--the kind you buy at the supermarket--don't grow well and are less productive as others. After growing several varieties of bells, including ones supposedly bred for growing in cooler climates, I have only been able to harvest 2-3 peppers from a plant, if I'm lucky. I switched to the "Italian frying type", which tastes the same or better, but is shaped longer and less blocky than the bells. Pinetree sells 'Corno di Toro', and 'Marconi' does even better.

Surprisingly, the chiles also do better for me than the "bells". I grow Anchos, Anaheims, Jalopenos, Thai, Serrano, Habanero, etc. These are wonderful to grow if you're into cooking Mexican or southwestern food.

I store my seed packets in zip-loc bags in the refrigerator crisper. Some seeds last longer than others, but if kept in good condition (cool, low humidity) most will last at least several years. You can buy the seeds now and they'll be fine til next spring (even if you don't store them in the fridge) but why bother--let the seed co. store them for you until next year. Do order early--I order in Jan.--or else you may find that they will be out of stock of some of the seeds on your order.

Just a stray thought here; all the vegetables that have been mentioned here are pretty easy for a beginner. However, when the seed catalogs start coming in the mail I'm always tempted by more than the "basics". :-) There are a couple of crops I'd recommend staying away from until you have more experience - cauliflower and melons. I might also add broccoli to that list. It isn't actually hard to grow, but the cabbage worms can be challenging to deal with. Good luck!

(Message from Pilemonkey's big sis, another very small space gardener whose thumb is now a light shade of green)

Although I get a longer growing season down here, I really envy your ability to grow spinach and lettuce with fewer bolting issues...and, I would think, fewer pest species for all of your veggies.

Anyhow, I second the vote for SunGold--have grown them for two years and love 'em (only problem is that I eat more as I pick than have left to put in salads!). And, yes, they do get big--I grow mine in a round cage made from concrete mesh (not sure if you've seen it since you aren't down here in the summer--I can take a pic to e-mail you).

Another suggestion along the trellis thought--what about peas???? In particular, Sugar Snaps??? I am able to get two crops (spring and fall) down here. This year I grew the ones that Pinetree offers and they were great.

I've done Pinetree's lettuce mixes. Personally, I don't like salads of all one type of lettuce--so I think that these are great. I think that one of Pinetree's mixes is for summer and, as such, it is slower to bolt...for spring and fall, I sow any mix.

Basil is REALLY easy from seed (I finally discovered this after several years of buying plants).

Oh--a note on seed storage--I save those little dessicant packets that you get with shoes and I throw a few of them into the ziploc bag with my seeds.

And, as I mentioned on the phone, be sure to check out the "Winter Sowing" forum...I'm pretty sure that there are some folks from up your way who are on there.