Leafy greens always seem to bolt too quickly? Can’t figure out why your broccoli isn’t forming heads? Choosing vegetable varieties suited to your climate helps avoid these sorts of frustrations.

In this episode, we get variety recommendations from gardening expert and entomologist Linda Gilkeson. Having spent much of her career on programs to reduce pesticide use, Linda is also an avid organic gardener who can garden year-round in her coastal climate.

Her books include Backyard Bounty: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Organic Gardening in the Pacific Northwest and West Coast Gardening: Natural Insect, Weed and Disease Control.

Linda gardens on Salt Spring Island, one of the Gulf Islands off the coast of British Columbia. She describes her growing conditions as coastal Pacific Northwest. Her variety recommendations are for these conditions.

But even if you’re not in the Pacific Northwest, I suggest you tune in. You’ll hear about tomato varieties that produce when it’s too cold for most others to set fruit. Did you know there are three broad groups of broccoli? And get Linda’s vegetable gardening words of wisdom.

Click here to see Linda’s list of top vegetable varieties.

Find Linda online at lindagilkeson.ca

If you’re looking for sources and tips about ordering vegetable seed, check out the post about where to get vegetable seed.  

---

• Join the 5,000+ gardeners in The Food Garden Gang who stay on top of home food-growing ideas with our weekly e-mail. We’re making the world a better place one garden at a time!
• Grab the free e-book: Small-Space Food-Gardening Hacks.
• Find out more about the Canada Gardener’s Journal: It’s a gardening journal, gardening log, and garden planner—with an all-Canadian sources list.