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While Away Winter with Seed Catalogues
How times have changed. A new generation of seed companies has sprung up in response to Americans’ increasingly sophisticated palates, and their rejection of mass- marketed, tasteless supermarket produce. Superior taste is the Holy Grail these growers are pursuing, and they are passionate about it. Ethnic vegetables and herbs, once almost impossible to acquire outside their native countries, are now available for adventurous market growers and gardeners. And “heirloom” seeds, those which have been passed down from one generation to the next, have an increasing presence in these catalogues as well. These heirloom seeds were saved, not for advanced disease resistance or huge yields, but because the varieties have real flavor. I have a little ritual I follow with these catalogues, which now start arriving in the mail before Thanksgiving. I hide them until all the Christmas decorations are put away; otherwise I’m not sure the tree would ever get trimmed! Then I pour a cup of tea and settle in for a long winter of planning, and dreaming. These are our favorites. Take a walk through their pages and bring great taste back to your garden, and your cooking! --- We discovered this quirky seed company
last year and we just love its staggering variety of heirloom and
ethnic vegetables, gorgeous photos and evocative descriptions. Melon
lovers rejoice- over 100 varieties are featured here, including many
Asian melons. --- I have mentioned this beloved seed
company in past articles, and we’ve ordered the bulk of our
herb and vegetable seeds here for years. They perform their own yearly
trials of thousands of vegetable varieties, and conduct their own
breeding program as well; all with an eye to bringing great- tasting
vegetables to the home gardener and market grower. Comprehensive growing
advice, lovely flower seeds and farm- tested tools and supplies make
this a catalogue no gardener should do without. --- A no- frills chile pepper catalogue
we’ve used for years, with a very diverse selection of both
sweet and hot pepper seeds. Unfortunately for the novice there are
descriptive entries for each pepper but no photos. (A great website
to view chile pepper photos is www.chileplants.com ) --- There’s something for everyone
in this catalogue, with European, Asian, Latin American and heirloom
vegetable and herb seeds, old- fashioned flowers, bulbs, perennial
plants , books, kitchen gadgets and more! Realizing most home gardeners
don’t need 60 tomato seeds in a packet, they feature smaller
quantities at smaller prices: seed packets start at 75 cents and rarely
top $1.50. Seed Savers Exchange This nonprofit organization is committed
to preserving its vast collection of 25,000 rare vegetable varieties,
some of which are offered each year in this gorgeous retail catalogue.
The vast array of heirloom tomatoes will catch your eye at first,
but you’ll find yourself thumbing through again and again to
sigh over the Technicolor eggplants, tongue- blistering chiles and
unusual winter squashes.
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Market
growers are often asked what they do in the winter. Surely one of
the things we anticipate most is the flurry of new seed catalogues
that arrive in the mail. When I was a child there were only a handful
of seed companies, with familiar names and impossibly glossy photos
of perfect produce. The catalogues would arrive in late December and
my parents and I would spread them out to plan next year’s garden.
Superlatives sprung forth from every page: words like “Whopper’,
“Supersonic’, and Extra- early”. These hybrid vegetables
were a marvel of breeders, with descriptions touting their superior
disease resistance. Choosing varieties to plant became an exercise
in dodging little- understood plant diseases and chasing both size
and huge yields. The one thing I don’t remember is much emphasis
on how the vegetables tasted. 