Seed catalogs galore provide dreams of summer gardens
The late winter tsunami of garden-seed catalogs flooding local mail boxes is well underway. The closer we get to the changing of seasons, the quicker they come.
Any seed company worthy of pitching prize-winning garden fare does not limit itself to just one catalog per season per potential customer. On some of the larger outfits, I’m into my third mailings of their 2022 catalogs. Even some of the lesser-known seed peddlers are now upping their game into more than a one-and-done version of their sales books.
Along with the quantity of catalogs each company mails in the days preceding spring, I also consider the quality. Besides offering seeds for sale, some companies add lessons in producing vegetables in their catalogs. I’ve raised asparagus to zucchini through the decades, but I still take the time to read all the tips and instructions these companies print for each of their offerings.
Also falling under the scrutiny of quality is the very print job itself, perhaps something only someone such as I, who has worked decades around printing presses, would bother to ponder. In this realm, catalogs from two seed companies stand out. Both – Burpee and R.H. Shumway – boast long and colorful histories in the garden seed business.
W. Atlee Burpee, a young medical student, dropped out of school in 1876 and started a mail-order poultry and livestock business. He specialized in chickens, sheep and dogs. After hearing complaints from several customers that quality farm and garden seeds were difficult to find, in 1877 he ventured into the seed business. Burpee’s founding occurred in Pennsylvania, which the company still calls home.
R.H. Shumway, meanwhile, started his mail-order seed business on the family farm in Rockford – yes, Rockford, Illinois – in 1870. When he died in 1925, the seed company shipped out 200,000 catalogs a year, making it the largest garden-seed catalog in the world. It is now headquartered in Randolph, Wis.
But, back to the printing quality of each company’s catalogs. Burpee, undoubtedly one of the biggies in the garden-seed industry, mails out catalogs with all-glossy pages and color photos of its vegetable, flower, fruit and herb offerings. It is one slick production.
R.H. Shumway, on the other hand, is about as old-fashioned as a gasoline-powered washing machine. Several years ago, it did cave in somewhat to the competition by going to a glossy, all-color production of its catalog cover pages and about half a dozen of a few first and last pages of its seed offerings. Other than that, a bulk of the inside pages are all black and white and printed on paper that’s similar to newspaper-quality. Not only that, but the fonts are old fashioned and wood-cut-like prints take the place of photographs.
Another big difference exists: While Burpee emphasizes new-and-improved hybrids that emerge every gardening season, the Shumway catalog is strong on heirloom seeds. Those black-and-white pages are crammed with open-pollinated varieties of sweet corn, watermelon, all matter of squash, etc.
I enjoy looking at both of these catalogs. I like to see how Burpee plant breeders each year manage to roll out new, improved varieties of seed that has been around for decades, but I also enjoy the trip back in time the Shumway catalog provides.
Every year when I open the newest edition of the R.H. Shumway catalog, my mind drifts back to the time when I learned to garden from my Uncle Peck. A confirmed bachelor for most of his life, he lived with my Grandma Gant in Minier. I especially loved our day-long visits to Grandma’s in the warm-weather months, because I knew I was in for some gardening adventures with Uncle Peck. He maintained a large backyard garden that was split in two by a narrow concrete sidewalk leading from Grandma’s back door to the alley at the rear edge of the property. But he also managed to tend to at least a couple of other large gardens on vacant lots a few blocks from Grandma’s house.
Uncle Peck had built his own wooden wheelbarrow that he loaded up in the morning with tools of the gardening trade that he would be using on any given day. Early in the morning, off we’d head across town to a garden patch. On most occasions, that wheelbarrow would be loaded with assorted vegetables for the return trip at the end of the day.
I don’t recall too many garden seed catalogs around Grandma’s house, but I do remember looking at copies of the Shumway catalog. Uncle Peck swore by the quality of Shumway’s seeds and ordered a good supply every late winter. He knew I really enjoyed going through the catalog with him and asking want he planned to order that year. Occasionally I prodded him with an inquiry about why he wasn’t buying some particular seed that had caught my attention. Sometimes he would cave in and order something I wanted, but that was a rarity. I didn’t know it back then, but later I realized that Uncle Peck’s annual garden-seed order had to be accompanied by hard, cold cash, something that was not plentiful in those days.
I seldom order anything from the mountains of seed catalogs I peruse each winter, even though I’m tempted by lots of new offerings. I suppose, if the truth be known, I’d plow up all my backyard, hire some helpers and plant everything that sounds appealing. But, just like what Uncle Peck faced, that takes money.
Besides, my wife is eyeing retirement and she’s had a heart-to-heart discussion with me about my garden this year. The message is, like all politicians say, “very clear.” So, I’m cutting back this year, especially on the vegetables we can. That’s understandable since our pantry runneth over with home-canned goods that will last us well into next winter.
I don’t plan to reduce the size of my patch, but I will plant melons that sprawl all over the place and a couple varieties of pole lima beans that I’ve never tried before. Those can remain on the vine until they have died and dried enough to be shelled.
The one thing I still intend to plant that somewhat defies my wife’s message is a special tomato one can only order from Burpee. The variety is called Super Sauce, similar to the popular Roma sauce tomatoes, but its fruit are enormous, easily four or five times the size of Romas. We do preserve a lot of sauce from tomatoes, include sauces we use for chili, pizza and pasta. The pantry will be running short of those by the time the Super Sauce tomatoes are ready to harvest this coming summer.
Earlier this week, I went through the new seed catalogs that have arrived and severely thinned them out. Since doing that, I’ve noticed several replacements have arrived in the mail. That should provide some good reading material for the rest of this week, when it’s supposed to snow. Again!
Garden season, I guess, has yet to arrive.
Dan Tackett is a retired managing editor of The Courier. He can be reached at dtackett@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Lincoln Courier: The seed catalogs are arriving at record pace in anticipation of spring
