I love your website… Very affordable seed prices.

I am THRILLED to have found it. 

I’ve yet to explore it completely but I am hoping to find some beginner-gardening info so I can plant a garden in the spring. I meant to plant one this year but got started too late. 

I will pass on the word to some friends who are looking for a vendor selling quality seeds like these. 

I have only about 150 sqft of usable garden area but the soil is pretty good. I could also use 5-gal buckets, too, I suppose. 

What would you recommend for quantities of seeds / density to maximize output? Also, what can be done to keep the garden producing longer?

Thank you very much for your e-mail. We appreciate you passing our info on to friends and will do what we can to put you in the right direction. 

Contrary to what most people may think, you can produce a lot of food in a very small space, such as your 150 square foot plot. 

From a personal standpoint, we do a lot of our own production using containers in conjunction with mini drip irrigation. If you have a ready access to 5 gallon buckets, by all means drill some drainage holes in them and utilize them. If not, we recommend #5 sized nursery containers (cheaper than 5 gallon buckets) which you can pick up for a few dollars each retail. (If you check with local landscaping companies, you might get their used containers cheaper as a good many companies actually pay to dump them). Added to that, we use drip 3/4 inch flexible drip irrigation tube for mainline, with 1/4 inch sublines and flag style drip heads. They go together as easy as tinker toys and attach directly to your hose or facet. Pre-packaged starter kits are also on the market. These are available in most nurseries/garden stores and for $20 to $30 you can set up a very reliable, automated water system for a small garden. It's as simple as merely turning your hose on. (For another $25 to $35 you can add an automatic timer, which turns your water on for you). I don't know of any other method that eliminates so much of the work for so little investment. Using the above, in conjunction with a very conservative application of Sea sediment/Kelp type fertlizer (the brand we use is ProtoGro, which is only available online), we get huge yields per plant and per square foot that far exceed what you can get using "normal" methods.

The Basic Drip Irrigation Kit for Container Gardening represents the latest advances in micro irrigation technology. You will find all the parts you need to irrigate up to 12 individual containers in a single zone. You can easily add onto this kit if needed. Kit includes: (1) 25 PSI - 3/4" Hose Thread Pressure Regulators, (1) 50 feet - Premium Grade 1/4" Vinyl Microtubing, (5) 1/4" Barbed Elbow, (5) 1/4" Barbed Connector, (20) 1/4" Barbed Tee, (1) 0-10 GPH Adjustable Dripper on Spike, (10) 6" Microtube Stabilizer Stake, (1) 1/4" in-line shut off valve, (1) 360 Degree Adjustable Sprayer on 5" Spike, (10) Goof Plug, (1) Tee Filter, (1) Female Hose Thread Adapter with 1/4" Barb, (10) 0.5 GPH Pressure Compensating Button Dripper,

Setting up a watering system for your yard can be a somewhat daunting task. However, Orbit® has taken all of the guesswork out of this and put together a complete kit for getting you started on your very own irrigation system. There are no timers to install or electricity involved. Just layout a watering system according to the included instructions, and once everything is attached and in place, you simply connect a standard garden hose and turn on the water. The Drip Irrigation Kit for Dummies makes installation and maintenance a breeze, so that watering the garden, potted plants, shrubs and trees is no longer a chore, its fun. Not only is it enjoyable, but using a drip irrigation system also reduces water usage by up to 70% over traditional sprinklers by focusing water directly to the roots. With the included equipment and detailed instructions, you are sure to make a great system that will let you sit back and watch your yard flourish. 

The Orbit Lawn & Garden Watering system includes a battery operated digital timer to allow for precision watering, as well as a four port manifold to allow for watering in multiple zones. This 4 station watering system is one of the most recommended on the market.

For extending the season, keep in mind that in our region (we are just to the north of the Siskiyous), it really is possible to grow your own food year round. 
Naturally, you can extend the season of crops such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, eggplant, corn, beans, melons and other summer crops using cloches, cold frames, greenhouses, etc. (sometimes you can gain another two weeks just by throwing some plastic sheeting over your plants at night this time of the year as our normal climate pattern usually includes a light frost in late Sept./very early Oct. that can kill tender plants, but that is followed by another 2-3 weeks of growing season before the real heavy frosts hit. Provided you can protect them from that light frost, you can usually squeeze a few more weeks out). Yet as a whole, most of these methods are very expensive and not entirely practical for most people's budgets. (As the economy gets worse, it will get even less practical unless you're lucky enough to have the old fashioned skill of piecing these sort of things together from whatever you can round up).

But the real key is crop selection, as there is really a wide range of crops that will handle the worse that our winters can dish out. That's despite the fact that about 98% of gardeners do not grow these crops and a lot of people don't eat them either. Most people only grow summer crops that require a long, warm season. One example is Miner's Lettuce (aka. Claytonia) which is an edible green that is actually native to our region and it grows year round from the Bay Area and northward to Oregon's Umpqua Valley. It's common name "Miner's Lettuce" comes from the fact that men during the Gold Rush era came to rely on it for food during the winter in our region. It is very high in Vitamin C and was found to prevent scurvy. Most people have never heard of this crop. Kale is another great crop that some people are familiar with, but here again, few grow it. Kale is native to Russia and it is the ULTIMATE winter crop as this stuff can freeze solid and it will still keep going. According to popular legend, kale was introduced to West Coast in the 1790's and early 1800's by Russian trappers who set up outposts from Sitka, Alaska all the way to Fort Ross. Later, in the 1830's and 1840's, kale was grown by Dr. John McLoughlin (Oregon's official patriarch) at the Hudson Bay Co.'s Fort Vancouver as the dominant fresh winter vegetable. There are also many well known crops such as Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, assorted root crops, Kohlrabi, Lettuce, Spinach, Mustard Greens, Garden Peas, etc. that are suited to our winters. While some will only survive the winter and actually produce in early Spring, a very fair share will actually put out a good yield of food during the winter. 

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We've got the best deal on high quality vegetable seeds on the market! Our vegetable seeds are grown the old fashioned way and are hand slected for their quality. What's more, our seeds are 100% open pollinated, meaning that in addition to them being free of harmful GMOs, you are able to grow and save your own seeds year after year for future use. Our seeds also yield produce that taste better than the rubbery vegetables that you buy in the supermarket. 

Unlike traditional seed companies, we offer our seeds in packaged no-frills sets opposed to just selling them in fancy individual packets. Despite their low cost (as little as $15.00 for a 50 packet set!), our seed sets are large enough to seed even the largest gardens and are a great assett to your family's emergency preparedness kit. Our supply is limited, so be sure to get your seeds before we run out!