Over the past several weeks, our mailbox and our inboxes have been filled with various seed catalogs and e-mails from different seed companies. But even more telling that the gardening season is on the way; Andre has begun to talk about catalogs on his “In the Garden” radio show!
The time has come to spread all these catalogs out over the kitchen table or sit in front of your computer and explore all the possibilities for new additions to your vegetable garden or perhaps just to mark your tried and true favorites. Every year, there are some really exciting new varieties of vegetables available and in most cases you will only be able to find these in catalogs or online.
In fact, most of the catalog covers, website homepages, and e-mail blasts tout the “AMAZING NEW” or “MUST-TRY” varieties for the year!

Rattlesnake beans have become my favorite pole bean ever, surpassing even Kentucky Wonder beans - sorry Grampa!
Personally, I like to sit down with my catalogs rather than browse online. As I mentioned in a recent post, Eric and I have been pouring over several different seed catalogs trying to pick out our seeds and plan our vegetable garden for the coming season. Burpee is offering some delicious new tomatoes and peppers in their 2011 catalog! Mmmmm!
One of my favorite catalogs is from Pinetree Garden Seeds. My gardening friend Ellen introduced me to this seed company a few years ago. Their catalog has some really interesting varieties including quite a few heirloom varieties. One of the best things about this catalog is that it has very detailed descriptions of each variety including growing characteristics, color, flavor, and yield. They also include the date of introduction and a bit of history behind the heirloom varieties if that information is known. Pinetree is where we were first introduced to the Rattlesnake beans which are an heirloom variety.
Pinetree has some interesting new varieties that we are going to try this year: Sugar Sprint snap peas are supposed to be nearly stringless and low growing, Cashflow zucchini just sounds delicious, and we’re really excited to try their new selection of spaghetti squash called Vermicelli!
Eric is still eager to plant a “Three Sisters Garden” so we’ll plant Silver Queen for the corn, Rattlesnake beans or a purple pole bean, Trionfo Violetto for the beans, and Waltham Butternut for the squash.
We have made a whole list of seeds to order, many are our tried and true favorites and others will be varieties that we’ve never grown before but look like fun ones to try. I’m looking forward to a great vegetable gardening season! Stay tuned throughout the summer for my vegetable garden updates!
Check our website for more great seed catalogs!
Until next time – Happy Gardening!