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Show I . Columnly speaking By DONETA GATHERUM I To a dedicated gardener, spring seed catalogs i are like medicine Catalogs that arrive before Christmas can best be used to start a fire or line a bird cage, but those that come in January are treasures. They are the seed catalogs. The reason seed catalogs are distributed is to get people to purchase pur-chase products through the mail that can generally be found at a local nursery for a lower price. This fact isn't important. To a dedicated gardener, seed catalogs are like insulin to a diabetic or digitalis to a person suffering suf-fering heart trouble. A catalog sustains sus-tains life during the winter months when all you can do is sit, draw plans for a garden on paper and browse through catalogs. Seed catalogs offer a customer far more than seeds and plants. Somewhere in the colorful magazine-style booklet there is a page devoted to gardening tips. This always includes a color-coded map showing the "Zones of Plant Hardiness.' A gardener studies this map carefully, hoping that the greenhouse effect has warmed Utah's air enough to move it from Zone Five (planting and shipping of stock after March 25) to Zone Ten (planting and shipping of stock on Feb. 12). This hasn't happened yet, 1 The companies that produce seed catalogs know people living in cold zones become impatient in February. They want to start gardening. That is why most seed catalogs contain several pages of advertisements for early starting aids. These range from heat tapes and mini-gro greenhouses that resemble the plastic containers used to package bakery products to Gro-Tunnel Gro-Tunnel greenhouses, a portable unit made of a plastic fabric that can be stretched over a PVC frame. For less than $300 a gardener can induce in-duce seeds to sprout in mid-February. mid-February. What happens to the tender green sprouts between February and mid-May when they can be placed outside is not explained ex-plained in the catalog. Another line of products sold through seed catalogs can be label ed "organic aids. A half pint of lady bugs, "a polka-dotted friend to gardeners but a deadly enemy to scale mites, aphids, mealybugs and other garden invaders,' sells for $10.95. A pretty plant, called "Gopher Purge, gives off a milky substance gophers and moles hate. A package of gopher purge seeds sells for $1.50. For people who have more than their share of pesty insects, one company gives, "500 reasons to buy a bat housethat's how many insects one bat is capable of catching cat-ching in just one hour and that's a lot better than an electronic bug zapper. ' ' For novice gardeners, seed catalogs offer inexpensive books designed to teach specific gardening garden-ing skills. For just one dollar each, a person can become an expert on "Ten Steps to Beautiful Roses," Fast-Growing Firewood,' "Creating a Wildflower Meadow" or "Making Homemade Wine.' A fun section in seed catalogs i the "Hard-to-find" page. Where else can you purchase seeds that are guaranteed to produce the world's largest gourds? Everyone Every-one should grow garden huckleberries, broom com and bead seeds at least once in his lifetime. Seed catalogs are treasures. They allow a gardener to sit in the house when there is a blizzard blowing outside and imagine spring, summer and the harvest season. This year, I'm going to plant a rainbow vegetable garden. I saw the plans for one in a seed catalog. I'll place red salad bowl lettuce right next to scarlet nasturtiums. By the yellow globe onions, I'll plant purple pur-ple ruffles of basin and strawberry popcorn. Of course, my rainbow garden will have to be bordered with royal burgundy beans and brittle brit-tle wax beans. If I plan just right, I can start the seeds in a quick-grow plant mixture which has been placed over a heating tape. Maybe it would be wise to invest less than $300 for one of those portable greenhouses. |