I was moving and shuffling important papers and pamphlets around the office this morning when I came across my stack of spring seed catalogs. During the past few months I’ve wondered a few times whatever happened to those things, so I was glad to see they survived the winter and were still around.
Discovering them also gave me the opportunity to wonder – once again – why seed catalog companies start sending me catalogs before Christmas in the first place. Who thinks about Memorial weekend planting before we’ve even had winter solstice? I sure don’t.
When I was a kid I don’t remember that my mother ever got many seed catalogs in the mail or planted a kitchen garden in our yard out back. She had the place pretty well covered with all kinds of flowers and flowering trees. Most of our fresh summer vegetables came from Sonny Leighton’s roadside stand, which opened sometime in June, even though the only fresh items available that early were native rhubarb and Swiss chard. Although father would often help mother plant her tress and flowering bushes and do other small chores to assist her in her gardening efforts, he never took interest in gardening or had what you might call a green thumb. And since he was a dentist, it was just as well. Who’d want someone – especially a dentist – poking around in their mouth with a strange-looking green thumb?
When I was around 10 I remember buying some packets of seeds down at Harris’ Tru Value Hardware and digging up a patch of ground in the yard and planting some vegetables to see what would happen. I was told by those who knew that, whatever else I got, don’t forget radish seeds.
Although I had never knowingly eaten a radish and didn’t see that they served any known purpose, I did add a packet of radish seeds to the pile and it turned out to be a wise move. Of all the vegetable seeds I got – lettuce, celery and such – the radishes were the only things to sprout and grow and thrive. Although I don’t like radishes any more now than I ever did, I will never forget them for their help so long ago with that first garden.
This year we’re planning a big garden up to camp, so I was glad to discover that my catalogs were still around. Now that April is here and decent weather can’t be but seven or eight weeks away, I feel like sitting down and ordering some seeds for this year’s camp garden.
The first catalog I picked up was from a place called Deer Resistant Landscape Nursery in Clare, Mich. I figure with all the deer tracks we have up to camp we’ll have to do everything possible to keep those hungry critters from cleaning out our garden at their earliest opportunity.
With packages of deer repellent, deer resistant plants, 8-foot deer fencing and all kinds of books outlining the best ways to repel deer, these people seem pretty focused and determined. If I buy all this stuff I just hope the deer know enough to play their part in this and feel duly repelled from our garden.
The next catalog off the pile was from Ronniger’s Potato Farm in Moyie, Idaho. A friend said he had great luck with Ronniger’s and their potatoes that sport names like: Dakota Rose, Early Ohio and Irish Cobbler.
Their potatoes sure look good in the catalog, but that isn’t surprising. Ever see any plant that looked weak or under the weather (no pun intended) in a seed catalog?
Most important, though, is I’m just not sure what would happen to me if I buried a few rows of Early Ohios from Idaho in ground meant for Kennebecs.
John McDonald is the author of “A Moose and a Lobster Walk into a Bar,” “Down the road a piece” and “The Maine Dictionary.” Contact him at Mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.
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