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Give Me A Seed Catalog On A Frosty Winter Evening

Like much of the eastern United States, Wynfield Creek Homestead has seen colder than usual temperatures this January, with lows on a couple of nights dropping into the unheard-of-in-these-parts single digits. We've also had our share of precipitation this month, but have been fortunate NOT to have the two at the same time... until today. Now, to be fair, the inch or two of "wintry mix" we are likely to get over the next few hours is nothing compared to the foot or two some areas of the country have endured this winter. Still, I've been saving up a particular item for an evening such as this, and, no, it's not a fifth of Wild Turkey -- although that doesn't sound bad, either. 

If your household is anything like mine and you do a lot of your Christmas shopping online and via catalog, you probably received an astounding number of catalogs between October 1st and December 1st. There were days in the early part of November when the mailbox was stuffed with a half-dozen each day. By Thanksgiving, however, that flow had dried to a trickle and had stopped entirely by mid-December. Then, right before Christmas, a new trickle started, the annual run of seed catalogs.

Now, to be honest, seed catalogs, like the start of spring training and the first robin, don't mean quite as much to me now as they did when I lived on the frozen tundra of northwest Ohio. In that dark and desolate land of chest-high snow drifts, sub-freezing daily highs and chill winds blowing across miles of empty farmland, the brightly colored catalogs with their pictures of bounteous crops and dazzling flowers were a sort of mini-vacation, a chance to leave the cold and snow behind for a few hours and lose oneself in the promise of spring and the smell of freshly-turned earth. Still, even in a place where "winter" lasts a couple of weeks and rarely involves more than a sprinkle of freezing rain or an inch of wet snow, there is a primal pull toward the promise of fresh vegetables growing tall and green under a Carolina blue sky. And that's why I save my seed catalogs for an evening such as this.

As far as the catalogs themselves go, everyone has a favorite among the dozens out there and everyone has an opinion on why that one is the best. For reasons that I cannot entirely recall, my catalogs of choice when I lived in Ohio were Johnny's Selected Seeds and Park Seed. I still order from Johnny's, which is based in Maine, but, strangely, no longer order from Park, which is based in South Carolina. In the place of Park I have added Landreth's, which bills itself as the oldest seed company in America, as my second favorite. These catalogs take entirely different approaches and have entirely different target markets. Johnny's targets the larger-scale home gardener and the small-to-midsize "professional" grower; the kinds of people you might see hawking their wares at a Farmers' Market. Their catalog is more technical in presentation, with detailed information on yields and productivity along with presentation, marketing and selling tips. Landreth's catalog is a work of art, with wonderful illustrations that are clearly designed to appeal to the recreational gardener. One thing I particularly like about Landreth's is that it offers an entire section devoted to container gardening, including several varieties cultivated specifically for this purpose. It also offers a number of "heritage" seeds for traditional colonial-era plants.

 I also occasionally order from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds. Located in Mansfield, Missouri this family-owned company is relatively new to the game, having printed their first catalog in 1998. I like their commitment to homestead values and their "village" concept. 

 Most recently, I have been entranced by the Territorial Seed Company catalog. I ordered a single pack of specialty seeds from them last year over the internet and just received their full catalog for the first time. It is the first catalog I have run across that offers a selection of hops, which I suppose has to do with them being located in Oregon. 

 Whichever seed company is your particular favorite, I hope you enjoy some frosty down time perusing their catalog and making your selections for the coming year.

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