Top Seed Catalogs for 2006

As the snow collects in back yards throughout the Northeast and Midwest, the blooming season seems far, far away. The short January days, however, are a great time to plan your garden for 2006. The stark snowy landscape makes it easy to see your garden’s structure without distraction from leaves and flowers. At my house, the new season’s seed catalogs start arriving in the mail shortly after New Year’s Day. Just a couple at first, followed by piles of choices by Valentine’s Day. Here are my, somewhat subjective, choices for the best of the 2006 seed catalogs.

Seeds of Change
A great resource for organic gardeners, Seeds of Change offers 100 percent organic vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. They offer a huge selection, including several new introductions and many heirloom varieties. Their easy-to-read catalog also features gardening tips and recipes for using produce grown from their seeds. In addition, Seeds of Change has a limited number of vegetable and herb seedlings, sold in collections of complementary items, such as “Mediterranean” seedlings and “Basil Diversity” seedlings. They feature gardening tools, clothing, and books on organic gardening and cooking as well.

Burpee
The grandfather of seed catalogs, Burpee’s has been selling seeds via mail for 130 years. Their catalog is still exciting to receive – kind of like the Sears Roebuck Christmas catalog of the 1960s. This 125-page comprehensive resource is packed with new introductions, many of them Burpee exclusives, such as this year’s “Maple Sugar Sweet Corn” and “Hot Lemon” pepper. There are also thousands of vegetable, herb, and flower seed varieties as well as seedling plants and summer bulbs, such as Cannas and Dahlias. If you can’t find it in the Burpee catalog, it probably doesn’t exist.