try some new seed catalogs

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I’M MAD ABOUT SEED. So mad that I have to have some “rules” for seed shopping. For instance: I restrain myself before binging in the new catalogs (here’s my list of favorite ones) until I do a careful inventory of my leftover seed, and see what I really need. My most important rule of all:

I buy organic seed when available, and seek out regionally appropriate varieties, too, in the hopes of best garden success, since seed is alive and I want to make it feel at home.

I explained my thinking on this and more in the “Mother Earth News” (as I did in a much briefer piece in “The New York Times”).

I hope you’ll “meet” some of the stars of the organic seed breeding and growing world in the articles and podcasts linked below, and add their websites and catalogs to your list of possibilities for the seed-shopping season.

q&a’s with organic seed companies

growing from seed: overall how-to’s

growing specific vegetables from seed

how to save seed

(Garden “doodles” by Andre Jordan for A Way to Garden.)

rethinking the lawn, with dan wilder

THE LECTURE that he’s been giving for a number of years is not-so-subtly called “Kill Your Lawn.” Ecological horticulturist Dan Jaffe Wilder knows that starting over and creating an entire native habitat instead of a lawn isn’t for everyone. But Dan just wants to grab our attention and get us to start to make some changes at least in the way we care for the turfgrass we do want in our landscapes. And maybe give up a little square footage of it to some other kind of more diverse planting, too, like the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana, inset). Alternative, more eco-focused styles of lawn care, along with some lawn alternatives is what he and I talked about on the podcast. Dan is Director of Applied Ecology at Norcross Wildlife Foundation in Wales, Massachusetts, and its 8,000-acre sanctuary. He’s also co-author with Mark Richardson of the book “Native Plants for New England Gardens.”