Seed Catalogs

I’ve been a voracious reader since the days when Mrs. Kresge proved the sisters of Perpetual Pain to be wrong about me being incapable of learning. So, that was third grade, a long time ago. I’m reading Mary Beard’s latest on the Roman Emperors and the latest issue of the Maine Antiques Digest. Ahh, discovery! OK, I confess there is also some science fiction.

But the inquiry should be what I am not reading. Why am I casting expressive and desirous glances toward the little periodical rack holding recent catalogs? It’s not lust for the LL Bean catalog or the fancy ones I only get before Christmas. It’s the first seed and garden catalog. 

The catalog arrived yesterday. It’s the first of almost a dozen that will appear over the next few weeks. I’ll cast looks in its general direction tonight, but I won’t yield. It will become a ritual between now and January one: look but do not touch.

I’ll grab the pile on January 1 with only the bleak prospects of winter to look forward to. Then I sit down for several hours of color, elaborate gardens, and new seed offerings. I’ll immerse myself in giddy expectations of the spring to come. Over the next week or two, I’ll prepare lists, compare prices and quantities, and remember the successes and failures I associate with various companies. By the end of the month, I’ve reviewed my findings with the wife. I’ve also cross-checked that I have everything she is interested in for the garden, and I am ready to order.

But first, I purge and recycle the catalogs I will not use. The ones I am ordering from have dog-eared pages and little notes stuck in between pages.

I am ordering seeds by mid-February. My raised beds received preliminary preparation in October and November, so until March, there is little to do.

That is the ritual of the seed catalogs, one of the methods I use to get me through New England’s Winter. 

We all do what we have to do! Onward to another growing season and discovery!

• The photo is from a previous year’s collection of catalogs