Seed Catalogues

While thumbing through the pages of the garden wish book, my mind searches for shade-loving colors to use when resurrecting this favorite spot this spring.

When my life seems ho-hum, I rifle through a stockpile of scribbles searching for column ideas. That backfired today. I grabbed the seed catalogue instead.

Have you seen one lately? The Whole Seed Catalog is a compilation of art and almanac, dream book and planning guide. It might seem a procrastination tactic, especially since when it comes to gardening - flower or otherwise - I’m in the appreciation/dreaming category.

Its 530 pages don't read like a conglomeration of the backs of seed packets. Nope. It’s a grandly- illustrated, inspiring adventure narrated by crafty writers creating visions in readers’ minds as eye-catching as the kaleidoscope of designs. Pages depict colorful tasty realities as created by some of our own county’s master gardeners like LeAnn and greenhouse entrepreneurs like Sarah.

Those same pages foster dreams of fantasy creations - possibilities in pots and mini-flowerbeds - to delight the eye, a backdrop for an enticing backyard retreat made complete by a cushy lounger, a glass of iced tea and an intriguing novel but ultimately designed to attract hummingbirds, bees and butterflies. It’s a handy how-to with enough science to satisfy the serious and plenty of fun for the rest of us.

A variety of gardening perspectives pops up in my heritage. I figure my great-grandmothers were ample gardeners and canners with lots of helping hands. Both of my grandmothers learned because I remember seeing shelves of canned goods.

In my recollections, one had a huge garden and was adept at keeping young hands busy shelling peas when their happy feet weren’t romping through the yard. Romping through the garden was not allowed. Okay by me. This city-born grandchild wasn’t fond of the critters frequently found there.

My other grandmother, an entrepreneur of her day, tended all sorts of herbs and flowers on windowsills and in the yard during breaks from tending to store customers. All - the herbs and flowers, not the customers - probably made it into cooking seasonings or doses of home remedies. She canned, too, because those foods were often part of her meals.My mother had her city flower beds that included early spring lettuce and radish plantings and a summer tomato plant or two. I have vague recollections of her canning, but freezing seasonal vegetables and fruits was more to her liking.

I have never canned anything, an atrocious statement to make, considering...Foods in my freezer come from the grocery already frozen. My son and family do have those culinary skills, perhaps partly due to having Elvie and Mildred Fann as his first babysitters. He learned all sorts of country ways romping through their gardens, following their every step.

On this Houseplant Appreciation Day, a January 10th holiday started by the Gardener’s Network, I will celebrate by tending to the houseplants I managed to save from summer flowers. Plants and cuttings are thriving. I’m going back to the seed catalog. Maybe I will add leaf lettuce and radishes this year, and keep trying to harvest a tomato or two.