Vegetable Garden Seed Selector Quizzes
Get Help Choosing the Best Vegetable Varieties:
We know it can be a challenge to choose the best variety of vegetables for your garden. Even for experienced gardeners, the number of options can sometimes be overwhelming. For example, we currently offer:
- Over 180 Varieties of Squash
- Over 70 Varieties of Mustard
- Over 110 Varieties of Beans
- Over 300 Varieties of Tomato
- You get the idea...
Choosing the best varieties based on your growing zone, your level of experience, precise characteristics you want, etc... can be frustrating. So... We are proud to introduce our Seed Finder Quizzes to help you find the best seed choices for you! Scroll down for a FAQ and tips to using these seed selector quizzes.
We currently offer a seed finder quiz for the following vegetables:
Note: Seed Finder Quizzes are currently provided for varieties with large numbers of options and lots of variability on characteristics. Those categories with fewer options do not have a quiz at this time, but you can use the filter functions on the left column of category pages and search pages to narrow your results.
Tips for Using the Seed Finder Quizzes:
- Use & Read the Tooltips – Tooltips are the little green circles in the quiz with an ‘i’ in the middle. Hover over it with your mouse cursor (or tap on mobile) and a text box will appear with definitions, details, and information about the questions and options. If you are new to gardening, the tooltips will be a great way to learn about aspects of gardening related to the vegetable in question. For example, if you aren’t sure what indeterminate tomatoes, long day onions, or parthenocarpic cucumbers are, the tooltips will make these concepts easy to understand.
- You Don’t Have to Answer Every Question – If you want to maximize your vegetable options, you can leave some questions unanswered. For example, if you want to maximize your color options when selecting beets, you can just leave the question blank. Or if you don’t care whether a cucumber is burpless or not, leave it blank. Your results won’t be narrowed by the burpless characteristic, and you’ll have more options.
- Perfect for Container Gardeners – If you are a container gardener (planters, buckets, troughs, hanging baskets, etc.) it can be a challenge to know what specific varieties of a particular vegetable are suitable for containers. For example, watermelons are generally not a good choice for container growing, but… there are 2 varieties of watermelon that are container growable. Each quiz will help you identify the best varieties for container growing.
- Circles vs. Squares – When you fill out a quiz, keep in mind that circle options are exclusive, and square options aren’t. You can only choose one circle at a time, but you can select multiple square options.
- You Can Change Answers Without Restarting – Sometimes when you choose a circle option, other options will become unavailable. For example, if you choose ‘seedless’ as a watermelon option, you’ll notice that ‘orange’ and ‘yellow’ flesh color options will become unavailable. This means there aren’t yellow or orange flesh seedless watermelon options. If you then change your option from ‘seedless’ to ‘seeded’, the orange and yellow options will become available again.
- Keep An Eye on the ‘Get Results’ Button – The ‘Get Results’ button will show you how many total options match your quiz answers, and the number will update as you go along. This is especially important if you are on a mobile phone, as you may need to scroll down to the ‘Get Results’ button to see the updated number.
Seed Finder Quizzes – FAQ
Q – Why do you need my Zip Code?
A – Your zip code will help us know some important information to pick the best vegetable varieties for your geography. We will know your USDA zone, approximate altitude, average first and last frost dates, and more. This will help us not recommend options that aren’t suitable for your geography.
Q – What is a USDA Zone, and why is it important?
A – The short answer is USDA Hardiness Zones is a survey conducted by the USDA that maps areas of similar geography and growing conditions. For example, South-Central Oregon and most of Ohio have similar growing conditions. Stuff that grows well in Ohio will also do well in South-Central Oregon. Primarily the USDA zone speaks to the overwinter survivability of perennials, and matter much less for annuals. Most garden vegetables are annuals, but the USDA zone still can inform the best choice of varieties for annuals. Knowing your USDA Zone helps us recommend the best varieties for your garden. The long answer can be found here.
Q – Why isn’t there a quiz for every type of vegetable?
A – Part of the answer is we still have work to do to expand the quizzes to other vegetables, but we started with the vegetables that would benefit most from a quiz. The other part of the answer is that many vegetables only have a handful of varieties, and quiz simply wouldn’t make sense. For example, we offer 1 cucamelon variety, 2 brussels sprouts varieties, 2 rutabaga varieties, etc. A quiz for those vegetables wouldn’t make sense, so we have focused on the vegetables with dozens to hundreds of options (we have over 300 tomato varieties to choose from, for example). We will be working on a comprehensive quiz that will also help with the other vegetable categories. In the meantime, you can use the filter function (left column on desktop & tablets, bottom of screen filter button on mobile) to narrow your options on all seed types.