The Salvation of Seed Catalogs

There comes a time in every person’s life when they reach an epiphany. When a great understanding comes upon them, and a voice of some deep inner knowing speaks, and says to them, with the force of an Old Testament prophet:

You better not get more than twenty feet from a toilet for the next 72 hours, or you’ll be sorry!

Yes, O reader, I have food poisoning or stomach flu or something along those lines. While the specific cause escapes me—was it the shepherd’s pie? The chicken alfredo? Exposure to Washington DC tap-water?—the end result is predictable and involves me spending a lot of time in the bathroom, while everything south of my tonsils attempts to leave for greener pastures.

It is at this time in a gardener’s life that seed and plant catalogs prove invaluable.

Seated in the smallest room of the house, armed with a Sharpie, my favorite seed catalogs, and my family’s patented Cure For What Ails You,* I can lose myself for hours. (Which is good, because that’s about how long I’m going to be in there.)

At this point in my life, I am down to four seed catalogs. (I get about a half-dozen, but some of those get pitched immediately into the recycling, because some plant companies are like stalker boyfriends and do not realize that one pack of liatris bulbs three years ago does not constitute a deep and meaningful relationship. Seriously, I kinda expect to find Spring Hill on my lawn with a boombox one of these days.)

The first is the Prairie Moon Nursery catalog, which has seeds for tons of awesome prairie natives. I love reading the descriptions, and they’re the only place I’ve been able to find Poke Milkweed seeds. They also sell plant starts (which I prefer to seeds, since many prairie plants have extremely complex germination requirements that involve the refrigerator and doing a little dance over each one while wearing a cow on your head) of many fine forbs and grasses, and it’s usually much more cost effective to buy a flat of prairie dropseed or little bluestem from them, when you’ve got a big area to cover and the local nursery wants $8 a pop for bigger specimens.

The second catalog is from Plant Delights, and I will confess, I do not have the budget to order from them often. But the descriptions are witty, no doubt about it, and often very useful and his descriptions of hardiness include things like “survived wheelbarrow strike” and so forth. Furthermore, there are twenty bizillion different plants, and most of the rare and new-to-cultivation plants show up at Plant Delights first, including the occasional fabulous native. (Who knew there was a native bush clematis?) So I read the catalog happily, jot down the names of the ones that seem interesting, and keep an eye out for them as they get introduced by other nurseries and come within my price range.

At this point, I’ve seen a lot in the way of perennials, and it’s time for a change. I call for more vodka and more toilet paper—in that order—and switch my attention to the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalog.

Oh, Baker Creek, how I love you.

So many vegetables, all of them open-pollinated and non-GMO, many of which I cannot possibly grow here in the South and would not eat even if I could, and yet, I find myself yearning over them. Each description is like a small, perfect poem.

Purple of Romagna Artichoke

Large, round-headed purple chokes, tender and tasty, perfect for warm season areas, or grow with shelter. So popular with chefs, and is a sure seller at the finer markets. We are proud to introduce this regional Italian favorite!

And who can resist the historic value of the Crapaudine Beet?

In 1885, the French book, The Vegetable Garden stated this is one of the oldest varieties. Today some experts feel this may be the oldest beet still in existence, possibly dating back 1000 years. This unique variety is one of the most flavorful, with carrot-shaped roots that have rough, dark colored skin which looks like tree bark. Inside, the roots are very dark, with almost black flesh that is of superior quality and sought after by chefs who want real flavor…

It is a dangerous catalog. By the time I am able to leave the bathroom long enough to add more hot lemonade to a beverage that is now room temperature and highly flammable, I have made plans to grow an extraordinary number of vegetables, despite the fact that my available growing area will limit me to one seed of each variety, and thus a harvest of approximately one-half serving of any given vegetable. Stupid beautiful vegetables. Why can’t they grow in between pine roots? That would be useful.

Surly with the need to limit my vegetable seed purchases, I retire back to the bathroom, taking the bottle of vodka with me for purely medicinal purposes.

The final catalog, however, puts me back in a good mood (or possibly I am merely moving to that stage of drunkenness where I wander around telling perfect strangers that they are beautiful and I love them.) It is the Niche Gardens plant catalog, and it is glorious.

Variegated river oats? A purple cultivar of toothwort? “War Axe” penstemon? A new mountain mint for my collection? All these are circled in Sharpie, occasionally with exclamation points. Niche Gardens is my local nursery, perhaps half an hour away, and I use their catalog as a kind of shopping list for when planting season rolls around and I can go and visit in person.

Obviously this can be dangerous. My need to fit in every kind of vegetable known to man is as nothing compared to my need to own one of every native plant that grows anywhere near my area, and while some of these plants will take shade (unlike the vegetables) there are so very many of them. Our diversity of native flora is a great glory, but it can also be a bit problematic for the slightly mad gardener. Where will I cram in the dwarf viburnum, “Mrs. Schiller’s Delight,”  that I obviously must own, or the chartreuse cultivar of anise tree (anise trees do very very well in my garden, and I have vowed to learn from this and plant more) and how will I put that marvelous native groundcover, Dyschoriste oblongifolia, to the test in my garden? They say that Thimbleweed will adapt to a wide range of conditions, so I should probably get three. I have a lot of conditions. (My boyfriend could argue that being a gardener is a condition all on its own…)

Well. There are ways. I have whole patches of ground that have not yet been planted, and yes, I may need to actually terrace and mulch and add dirt to those patches before they will actually support life–possibly irrigation will be required, maybe something along the lines of the Hanging Gardens, but damnit, if the Mesopotamians can build a ziggurat, so can I, I went to college, how hard can a ziggurat really be?—But this is doable! I can make space! Never let it be said that the viburnum clan called upon me and found me wanting!

It will just have to wait until I am sober. And, y’know, out of the bathroom.

*Vodka, hot lemonade, and honey. This works on the principle that hot lemonade is an aromatic, honey has untold healing properties, and vodka is vodka.

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