How can we help but be confused if the spring catalogs come out in the dead of winter and the autumn catalogs come out when we're just planting in spring? Do gardeners care?
Ros Creasy, whom I had the pleasure of visiting in Los Altos this week, taught me about another merging of two seemingly opposing forces, the ornamental and the economic.
At this time of year, at the height of the growing season, nothing argues more for the preservation of seed variety than the pleasure of savoring the abundance of tastes.
So often we allow mundane garden tasks like weeding or raking up fallen leaves and spent magnolia flowers to distract us from the garden activities that would benefit us more greatly in the future.
"I am now in my mid-50s and I’ve reached an age and a stage in my professional life where I have the opportunity to create one more chapter.”
-- Tad Ames, president of the Berkshire Natural Resources Council
The Seed Saver’s Exchange offers many ways of procuring heirloom flower and vegetable seeds and books to learn about seed saving, starting plants ahead of the growing season and gardening.
