I used to look forward to the arrival, shortly after Christmas, of the next season's seed catalogs in the mail. Right in the dead of winter when I was cabin-bound and feeling cranky, those seed catalogs perked me up and made me start thinking a few months down the road to the planting season.
But now I see that those catalogs are cruel. They make it only harder to endure a lingering winter. It's like your friends who have gone to the Caribbean in February and send you a postcard telling you what a wonderful time they're having on the beach. It makes you want to go toss snowballs at their windows.
Besides being sadistic, seed companies mail their catalogs to us early to get us to start planning our gardens and stocking up on supplies to beat the crowd. It's a clever marketing gimmick - tempting the deprived. For me it's akin to going to the grocery and shopping on an empty stomach. I can't be trusted with a seed catalog in the middle of winter. The companies bet on the fact that most people are eager to get out into the garden and likely to buy way more seeds than they will ever use in a single lifetime, and I never let them down.
I still have packages of garden seeds left over from as far back as 1996. I ask myself every year: "Why do I need to buy more seed when I have enough stuff left over from previous years to supply a major grocery chain with fresh produce?"
There's the fact that many seeds lose their germination power after a year. But there's also the fact that if I used my old seed I would have no need for the new catalogs. It's a fickle irony and the sick thing about this is, even though I can tell I'm being used, I like it.
Human beings are weak. We let companies exploit our tendencies to buy more than we need just because we like to stock up. It makes us feel secure. If people know they have a tub of beans or a bin of garden seeds in the cellar, it makes us think we could endure anything, maybe even a nuclear attack. That may be nothing more than brainwashing left over from the Cold War, but we believe it. Personally if all I had to live on after a nuclear holocaust was pinto beans and garden seeds, I'd rather get it over quick. Just beat me over the head with the next garden seed catalog I get in the mail.
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Hedberg may be contacted at
kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.
