Perhaps you are not quite sure where to start? We sympathize that pouring over the hundreds of varieties of seeds available can be quite dizzying, In which case maybe you may be interested in Farmer Don's favorite collection of garden standbys. These include:

2 Options for different sized gardens

Smaller Garden:

This collection of 16 sublime packets can plant a nice 10' x 10' space or a couple of raised beds. A 16 packet window into what makes a wonderful unique garden of beautiful, delectable delights. 

1. Arugula, Tuscan - super quick growing greens provide a delicious source of fresh and tasty greens - makes amazing pesto too!
2. Basil, Genovese - my favorite pesto variety. Mild sweet flavor. Keep harvesting it to keep it from flowering and provide you with aromatic loveliness!
3. Beans, Provider Snap Bush - so productive and gorgeous.
4. Beets, Shiraz - Fast growing; big-tops, smooth round, red roots with outstanding vigor. The sweet, dark red roots are incredibly smooth due to their disease resistance
5. Carrot, Scarlet Nantes - delicious and nutritious!
6. Cilantro, Santo - selected for slow bolting. Allowed to go to seed it will resow itself readily. Edible seed is known as Coriander.
7. Corn, Zanadoo Sweet - a mixture of white and yellow kernels and we are finding this bi-color is promising to be a little sweeter than the single color white or yellow Anasazi cross corn lines.
8. Cucumber, Lemon - never bitter, the perfect fresh garden snack, that is tremendously productive over a long season.
9. Kale, Alive Vates - A Siskiyou Seeds Original seed at it's best. A work horse! Kale Chips, Kale salads with Balsamic vinegar and so much more.
10. Lettuce, Verte Mar - Uniform heads are surrounded by tasty, crisp, slightly crinkled leaves that are sweeter than other romaines. Heat tolerant!
11. Onion, Siskiyou Sweet - Siskiyou Seeds Original. A well adapted sweet onion with 20 years of organic, on-farm selection to produce a versatile standby.
12. Pea, Oregon Sugar Pod - A delicious, highly disease resistant, non-climbing dwarf snow pea.
13. Radish, Cherry Belle - They grow so quickly and provide you with fresh food so easily they are perfect for filling in production gaps in your garden calendar.
14. Spinach, Abundant Bloomsdale - Spanakopita - say no more
15. Tomatoes, Gold Currant - so sweet that they will keep you in the garden for longer than you expected!
16. Zucchini, Dark Star - Long harvest window is a good trait for farmer and gardener alike. Remarkably vigorous.  

Large Garden 

Seeds Enough for a 20' x 20' garden. Includes all of the above plus the following for a total of 27 packets:

1. Beans, Pepe de Rola - Old timers believe pole beans taste better than bush varieties. Find out for yourself if the extra effort to trellis them is worth it..
2. Broccoli, Solstice - After cutting the central head, the plant continues to produce abundant tasty side shoots for several months. In addition, the stems are very tender, which increases the amount of edible, delicious broccoli that may be harvested from each plant. 
3. Chinese Cabbage, Maruba Santoh - grows rapidly to a large size creating abundant leaves for stir frys and works perfect for pickling into delicious ferments.
4. Corn, Festivity Sweet - A selection bred by Jonathan Spero of Lupin Knoll Farm that is the result of crossing Festivity with Tuxana sweet corn. Open pollinated, cold tolerant, rainbow-colored, multi-stalked with frequently 3-4 ears per plant.  
5. Lettuce, Diversity Mix  - direct seed for continuous salad crops.
6. Melon, Sharlyn - Forget flying to the tropics people, stay home and grow these in your garden, eat ‘em in the sun and frolic with friends on a fruit sugar high! 
7. Mesclun Mix, Mild - Keep planting this delicious mix of mustards, cress, kale, orach and more for tender salads all season.
8. Pumpkin, Winter Luxury - the jury is in and agrees that these small netted fruits make the best pie pumpkins.
9. Sunflower, Black Dye - forget trellising those beans and just grow them up these lovely and beauties.
10. Swiss Chard, Prismatic- as beautiful to behold as it is to use in the kitchen.
11. Tomato, Black Krim - This is a wonderful medium large heirloom slicer hailing from the isle of Krim in the Black Sea in Russia. The juicy flesh is marbled with green, brown, red and pink and is other-worldly in flavors! One of the best.

* Check out our Basic Seed Saving Book if you want a little help getting into saving your own garden seeds:

https://www.siskiyouseeds.com/collections/farm-goods-auto/products/basic-seed-saving-book