Our Selection of the Ten Best Seed/Nursery Catalogs Continues….
This is something that we at Mountain Laurel Copywriting would like to make a tradition. We have already selected two of our favorites: Seeds n’ Such and the Burpee catalog. And as it snows and freezes outside as I write this, we are also still getting catalogs in the mail.
For many of us, the garden begins here in deepest winter.
I study these catalogs, get lost in them, gobble them up.
The question is always, “Can we make these botanical miracles happen HERE?”
We expect to be posting our catalog picks through April—and maybe even May, with one catalog review each week. Incredibly, we usually have to deal with much savage weather right through April in the Pocono Northeast, and some people hereabouts don’t put their plants into the ground until after Memorial Day.
The reason? We nurture our starts all winter long, and then April looks so alluring and balmy. And then a frost comes and kills it all.
After that, comes an inevitable shower of vinegary tears.
And so, we encourage houses of botany to talk to us, commune with us and garden with us.
As an important aside, we can and will test products. But it is best for us to have a conversation before doing that. If you are reading my gardening blogs, you understand that we aren’t exactly planting our dreams into the greatest soil on Earth —not to mention that elements of climate, which I will discuss more in the future, have dealt us some new challenges that beefing up the soil alone, organically, does not address.
Despite this, farming is in our genes. It makes up a significant spiritual part of our humanity. As long as are here, we will find a way to plant that yearly garden. I only wish I were doing it now!
Any product reviews that we publish on our pages are available to the companies we review, and we encourage them to use them and spread them wide and far, as long as they give the writer, usually yours truly – and the company, credit. (Laurel and Wayne also sometimes write the reviews.)
We also ask that a link to our website be linked to the review.
In all fairness, we consider this a gift to the companies we review. My time is valuable. If you hire us to write a blog outright, the charge is $150 — which is still mighty reasonable — however, we review products sent to us essentially free. It would be a rare occasion that we are sent a product valued at $150. In fact, this has never happened to us. So, we routinely write these reviews at a loss.
Why?
Because we want to promote green and sustainable businesses.
Gardening is one of our favorite topics because of the vast benefits that occur when many people plant even the tiniest of gardens, including urban roof and balcony varieties.
These little plantings give back oxygen to the Earth. And right now, the planet needs this action desperately.
In the past, I have written about our needing to turn parking and abandoned lots in community gardens, and we will take up that topic again in the future.
So, let me hear from you. What do you want to plant? What can you plant? Do you have a gardening budget? Do you start plants from seed? Only buy locally?
We get significant readership, but folks seem too exhausted by the rigor of postmodern life to offer comments. (Yes, I know. This is our new website, and conversations take time to ripen.)
But remember, I’m listening to you. In fact, I’m all (elephant) ears! We really need to start the greatest conversation about the challenges that 21st gardeners face if we are to stop cycles of ecological destruction and finally create a new heaven on Earth.
Are you with us?
The great adventure can start with just one packet of seeds, combined with faith, hope, nurturing and a manure scoop or two of knowledge!
Copyright 2018 by Maria Jacketti, Ph.D.