In midst of winter, it’s really easy to be thinking green

It is almost mid-January, and I just got my first seed catalog in the mail. In years past, I would have had half a dozen or more by now, but thankfully, these businesses can take a hint when you don’t buy from them for several years. I wish the credit card solicitors would take the same hint!

This catalog is from Burgess, a seed company in Bloomington, Illinois. I love to read the descriptions of the flowers and vegetables offered each season, but, by now, I have learned that pretty pictures do not always portray reality for the average person. I suspect that people who subscribe to online dating sites may have learned this same lesson. I would caution all of you to take these descriptions lightly. Be suspicious of promises that don’t seem to make sense. Adjectives such as “amazing,” “incredible,” “miracle” and the like should be red flags for careful consumers.

On the back cover of this catalog, there are two offerings that caught my eye. The first was for a “fruit cocktail tree.” It reads “Amazing one-tree orchard” and proclaims that you will harvest bushels of peaches, nectarines, plums and apricots from one tree that only grows 10 feet tall. While this is botanically possible, since all the listed fruit are stone fruit and may be grafted onto one tree, the likelihood of all of them thriving is close to zero. The same is true for multiple apple or pear varieties similarly grafted. I don’t recommend growing them either. The problem is that each of these fruits have slightly different growing requirements, and perhaps the best you can hope for is that one or two will become dominant and you may get some peaches or plums or apricots, but not all the above.

The other back page ad is for the “mosquito shoo geranium.” This plant “keeps mosquitoes at a distance”. “No more oil sprays, dripping candles, flaming torches, or crackling bug zappers. This biogenetically engineered plant’s leaves release a pleasant fragrance (like lemon furniture polish) that deters mosquitoes.” I am not sure what “biogenetically engineered” means but I know that this plant is not genetically engineered in the same manner that involves inserting a foreign gene into a strand of DNA for a specific purpose, such as conferring resistance to a herbicide.

No, this plant is simply a scented geranium of which there are a half dozen or more varieties commonly sold at your local garden center. This one smells a bit like citronella, a substance widely reported to repel mosquitoes. The fragrance is faint, at best, and requires scratching or disturbing a leaf to notice it. I am not so sure I would want a plant that smells like furniture polish anyway. I do like scented geraniums in general, though, as some do have a fragrance of lemon, rose and even chocolate! The scented varieties are not grown for their floral displays, however, and flowering geraniums are the most-popular bedding plants in America.

I don’t mean to malign Burgess in particular. The majority of plants they offer are just fine and it is fun to browse catalogs and daydream of summer gardens, when it is miserable outside. Years ago, mail order catalogs were a rural necessity because there were so few stores to shop outside of the cities. Today, we have lots of places to buy anything we want locally. Of course, the internet is the new shopping mall, not only for rural America, but for the world in general.

I hope that most of you will purchase your garden plants and supplies from local merchants. The big box stores buy their plants from huge wholesalers, which allow them to retail the plants at prices that small businesses cannot compete

with. The specific varieties they offer may not necessarily be the best ones for our particular region though. Most local garden centers sell varieties that do grow well here, and many carry specific varieties because local customers request them.

If you would like some expert advice on how to grow practically any kind of vegetable at all, the following website will teach

you: gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene0391.html.