by Leslie Cox; Friday; January 13, 2017

Ugh! More snow is falling as I write this.

Don’t get me wrong. I would much rather have snow than rain almost any day through the winter. My spirits are always upbeat when the white stuff is on the ground. So much brighter…and cleaner…than the grey days filled with rain. Like what we got through all of last October and November. Only nine days of no measurable precipitation out of sixty-one days. Total rainfall for those two months: 1287 mm (51.5 inches)!

Talk about depressing of gargantuan proportions.

Thankfully, the snow started falling on December 8th. A light dusting at first, and then it really came down. Plus, the temperatures plummeted downward almost as fast as the flakes were falling. And it has stayed cold. Cold enough we have not seen the lawn and garden since the first week of December.

So now we are into the fourth month of unstellar gardening weather. I, for one, am getting a little antsy. If it were not for the seed catalogues arriving in the mail, I would definitely be off my rocker.

Those booklets filled with colourful photos of flowers, vegetables, and herbs are a real godsend for my sanity. They get me jumpstarted on planning this year’s vegetable garden, as well as excited to trial some new and/or different varieties…something I do every year. Let’s face it, if you do not try growing a few of the new ones, you will not know how they will perform in your region.

For clarity sake…when I say I try “new varieties”, they are not necessarily brand newbies on the market. Often my trials are on older heritage varieties…such as Lemon cucumber which dates back to 1894 and Black Beauty eggplant, introduced in 1902. But I did try growing one of those grafted blue tomato plants one year. For me it was a bust. The fruits started appearing very early but took forever to ripen! Way past when we were eating our red tomato varieties. Even picking the fruits when they were rock hard, to try and ripen them inside, did not pan out well.

Live and learn.

On that note, here is a list of my very favourite seed catalogues:

• West Coast Seeds, BC – Great selection and full of useful growing information for the Pacific Northwest region. (www.westcoastseeds.com)

• Salt Spring Seeds, BC – 30 years of offering organic heritage varieties. Good selection. (www.saltspringseeds.com)

• Heritage Harvest Seed, Manitoba – 14 years offering a great selection of heritage varieties with wonderfully informative write-ups of each. Some varieties are very rare. (www.heritageharvestseed.com)

• Stokes Seeds, Ontario – Family-owned for 5 generations. A colourful catalogue with a great selection of vegetables, herbs, and flowers. (www.StokeSeeds.com)

I do have a few other favourites, such as Johnny’s Select Seeds, Maine USA and Rene’s Garden, California, USA but the current exchange rate between their dollar and ours is too much right now. Besides, most of the selections in those two catalogues can be bought from Canadian sources.

And on that note…I must get back to finalizing my wish list. Always a good idea to get your order in early so you are not disappointed if they run out. Especially if you like growing the popular varieties.