Planning your Garden: The pros and cons of seed catalogs
Planning Your Garden – Seed Catalogs
I love seed catalogs. Maybe a bit too much. This year, I ordered seeds from five different companies. I spend evenings in December circling plant descriptions, writing lists of favorites and prioritizing what interests me.
I’ve seen some gardeners and farmers that have buckets and bags and tupperware stacks full of unused purchased seeds that they keep “just in case.”
Hot take: If you saved those seeds from your garden, heck yeah! Keep them for a few years. If you’re storing those bad boys for the End Times in a freezer – then, OK, you do you. But hoarding purchased seed at room temperature achieves little.
Seed germination rates drop precipitously after the first year. By the time you get around to using those seeds, more and more of them will be duds.
If you’re buying seeds from a catalog, try to buy what you’ll actually use this year.
Here’s the seed catalogs I purchased from this year, in no particular order of importance:
Johnny’s Selected Seeds: Many Northeast Georgia farms order seeds from Johnny’s, or seedlings started from Johnny’s seeds. It’s the standard. Johnny’s is employee-owned (Yay!) and sells a mixture of organic and conventional seeds. Great germination rates. On-point descriptions of varieties with lots of additional information about how to grow the plants. Downside, they’re aiming for farmers, not gardeners, so prices, quantities and information is geared more towards journeymen and professionals than amateurs.
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: A great selection of varieties well suited to hot, muggy Georgia and other Southeastern states. Many southern-cultivated heirlooms that you won’t find elsewhere including a wide selection of collards, okra and eggplant. Unfortunately, Southern Exposure is well known, which means many popular varieties quickly sell out.
Territorial Seed Company: I only started ordering seed from Territorial last year. They’re based in Oregon, so they weren’t on my radar until I wanted some different cucumbers and man, o, man, did they have some great cucumbers! If you’re growing in the Southeast, you’ll want to check product descriptions for heat tolerance – a lot of what they offer is more suited to a different latitude than Georgia.
High Mowing Organic Seed: All their seeds are organic and non-GMO, so I don’t have to obsessively double check my order for conventional seeds. There’s fun little farmer bios (including great Georgia farms in the 2022 catalog), a removable planting calendar in the back for easy reference and good cultivation info for different varieties. The downside here is that pricing and quantity can be confusing, especially if you don’t have experience navigating their pricing tables.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: Big photos! Fun, colorful type! Lots of exclamation points! The brightest and most excitable seed catalog by far. With what feels like everything being “the best,” and “the tastiest,” it can be hard to tell what’s actually the best and tastiest. I feel like I’ve been fooled a few times – Brad’s Atomic Grape is beautiful, but it didn’t taste good to me. With that caveat, there are varieties in here that are amazing and difficult to find anywhere else. I snagged a few of the Pink Okra seeds and I am pumped to see how they turn out!
ACK, that’s too many choices! It’s OK. Pick one catalog to request. Get that one. Sit down with a beer and circle every plant you like (and will eat or use). Then start crossing some off the list that don’t work or won’t fit or look really intimidating. You’ll have a short list after some time and thought.