It’s not quite time to plant a shovel in the garden yet, but it’s almost past time to participate in that beloved yearly ritual: The Perusing of the Seed Catalog.
My wife and daughter sat over coffee this morning, their heads close together as they leafed through the pages displaying the offerings of a number of different companies.
I’ve done some looking myself, but mostly I’m saving my energy for the labor part of this endeavor (though my wife does more than her fair share of that, too).
That said, I love the language of the activity.
From just one, the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds 23rd Annual Pure Seed Book, I find Conover’s Colossal Asparagus, Kurzers Calico Traveler Lima Beans, and the Snake of Mugla eggplant.
There’s also the Bald Head mustard and the Wild Rocket arugula, found just a few pages before the Red Ursa kale, the description of which includes absolutely no mention of a bear, red or otherwise.
Leafing on (pun intended), I find the King Tut Purple pea as well as both the Apocalypse Scorpion and Death Spiral hot peppers. Sizzle.
The tomato listings include plenty of greens: Aunt Ruby’s German Green, the Green doctors, the Green Zebra, and the Green Giant. There’s also the Lucky Tiger, the Mushroom Basket, and, yes, the Mortgage Lifter. True story.
Oh, and Brad’s Atomic Grape.
Moving into the flowers, I find the Strawberry Blonde calendula and the Velouette cosmos. Not to be passed over is the ever-popular Kiss-Me-Over-The-Garden-Gate, a favorite for obvious reasons.
Wow. So many seeds and so little time.
Lion’s Ear mint and Lucky Tiger tomatoes and the aforementioned Red Ursa kale, oh my! (See what I did there?)
With that, I’m going to go sharpen my shovel.
Yet There is Method 
Love the seed catalog! When I was young one of my ambitions was to write copy for catalogs and name things like colors, plants, animals and seeds. A strange ambition, but I was also the 4th grader that wanted to play bagpipes in the school band and was VERY disappointed when they were not an option:)
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I know someone does that writing, but I’ve never thought about who. Wow. The bagpipes? That would have been cool!
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I, too, love the seed catalog! My husband does most of the gardening (he’s retired), but I’m a big part of the dreaming. I love the names you accentuated…I never really thought about how much fun the plant names were. Enjoy this season of the catalog!
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There are some really cool names! I hope you enjoy this year’s garden.
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So amazing! I’ve taken a long hiatus from gardening, but I still love looking at the catalogs and reading the descriptions of different flowers and plants.
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I am going to order seeds from a catalog this year. I have tried the local greenhouses many years in a row and have had little luck. Not sure why! I think my children will also enjoy the process of choosing the seeds and planting them indoors. We can’t put plants outside until after the May full moon. Our growing season is so short we have to get the started inside or we get nothing.
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Catalogs are always so fun to flip through and dream and plan. We had a garden several years in a row in the one house we lived in. No garden since then. Moving to a place with only pots as an option now. Have fun!
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What a fun read! Even for a brown thumb like me.
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What a great source for names/language. I used to be on some catalog lists, but they stopped coming. Maybe I’ll see about getting one again!
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They are great for browsing, and for collecting language!
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