FIRST OF THE SEASON

The season’s first seed catalog arrived today. While I have rarely encountered a seed catalog I didn’t like, today’s arrival is one of my favorites: High Mowing Organic Seeds.

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There is, I suppose, a self-indulgence, if not an outright hypocrisy, in continuing to receive paper catalogs when the information they contain is almost always equally available online. Most seed companies have long since established strong online presences.

High Meadows is no exception. The company’s site is comprehensive, well-organized, easy to navigate. When the time comes to order, I’ll be doing my ordering online.

But I haven’t yet made the leap to canceling the paper catalogs. I enjoy them too much. I like being able to stretch out and leaf through the pages, putting check marks beside definite purchases, question marks beside possibilities.

Maybe I’ll get over this at some point, although it’s likelier that the companies will take the initiative and begin discontinuing their paper catalogs. Or charging a substantial price for them, which some firms already do.

For now, though, the first catalog is here and sometime this weekend I’ll stretch out and begin looking, thinking, dreaming about next year’s gardens.