I’ve never been that excited about seed catalogs. My grandmother, who has been a flower gardener pretty much all her life, spends hours looking through them. Even though she only had a very small garden her last years in her house, she always ordered something new and exciting from a seed catalog in the early spring. At one point when I lived with, her I got to join in the excitement when the little boxes came. But for some reason, when I happened to get a bulb catalog in the mail, I glanced at it and threw it away. Not this year!

Maybe it’s because Nan Chase wrote such a great article about seed catalogs for our February issue. If you haven’t read it, or don’t subscribe, find yourself a copy and read that article. She did a great job of showing just how valuable these published works of art can be, not only for getting some pretty cheap seeds but also for learning a little about how to care for your plants as well as the history and culture of the things that make up our garden.

But I also think it’s just the fact that I’m settled into a more permanent place than I ever was during my young adult years, couple with the fact that last year I had my first “real” vegetable garden.

So when the Gurney’s catalog came offering $25 off your total, even if you order less than $25 (meaning your order is free!) I thought, “I just might take them up on that.”

Then the Comstock catalog came, and I spent my Sunday morning looking through that one, dreaming about big, pink tomatoes and a rainbow of zinnias this summer. I dog-eared quite a few pages in that catalog too.

Gardening may be a lot about tradition and doing the same things over and over again, like pulling weeds, watering plants and digging up the soil each spring. But it’s also about trying something new. Last summer my “new” was planting a vegetable garden and trying my hand at freezing some of my harvest. This fall I planted something completely new to me – a few freesia bulbs. And this winter I’m trying something else new, I’m ordering some things from the seed catalogs.

Stay tuned to this blog, you’ll be the first to see how the new venture works out!