Winter is catalog time for gardeners

Since all seed companies now seem to have a Web presence where you can look up telephone numbers and find snail-mail addresses, I will only list the website addresses. One of the great things about the Daily News web site, adn.com, is you can go to the column online and find the links so you don't have to type in web addresses. Of course, there is the added feature, these days, of being able to highlight and copy information from websites. This can be collected in one spot using your word processing program. As I have noted before, the computer is one of our best gardening tools.

I always start with the catalogs I know take Alaska gardeners seriously and offer us seed that can handle our especially short season and cool night conditions. For annuals, these are Johnny's Selected Seeds (johnnyseeds.com), Nichols Garden Nursery (nicholsgardennursery.com) and Territorial Seed Company (territorialseed.com). In addition to seeds, all three are full of useful growing tips.

For perennials, I go to Fritz Creek Gardens (alaskahardy.com). It is located in Homer and only sells what grows here. Plus, you don't have to pay an arm and a leg for shipping. Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery is famous for alpine and rock garden plants and has a site that enables us to buy plants by cold hardiness zone (siskiyourareplantnursery.com/zone.aspx). Anything for zones 1-4 and possibly zone 5, should make it here with a bit of mulch cover in the fall.

If you want a perennial catalog that is just plain whimsical and fun to read, then try Plant Delights Nursery Inc. plantdelights.com). Don't let the North Carolina address fool you. I am told they have lots of satisfied Alaska customers and, having personally visited their display gardens, I can see why.

Sometimes it is fun to find new varieties of seeds we traditionally grow here, kale, cabbages, carrots, beets and the like. Check out Seeds of Italy (seedsofitaly.com/catalog/7), which features Franchi seeds. They have a particularly interesting collection of cauliflowers, cabbages and broccolis. Likewise, Seeds of Change (seedsofchange.com) has a great selection of vegetable seeds, all of which are grown organically. They have a particularly interesting offering of short-season zucchinis of all sorts of shapes and colors.

For old-fashioned-style catalogs, try Stokes (stokeseeds.com). These folks are based in Canada but have a U.S. catalog as well, so they carry plenty of stuff that will easily grow here. Of course there is Burpee Co. (burpee.com), Thompson and Morgan (tmseeds.com) and Park Seed Company (parkseed.com).

Then there are the catalogs I like because they are so darned beautiful. At the top of my list these days is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com). These folks produce a hard-copy catalog that has been aptly described as garden porn. One look at the luscious pictures will tell you why. Everything they offer is open pollinated and, while they tout only having non-GMO seeds, I am pretty sure that all seed catalogs limit themselves to non-GMO products.

Finally, check out Exhibition Seeds (www.exhibition-seeds.co.uk), a British company that sells seeds for those who might be interested in trying to set size and weight records. Another good source for potentially giant vegetables is Seedman.com seedman.com/giant.htm).

OK, as is my tradition, I will be writing about seed catalogs and websites for the month of January. If you have any particular seed needs or if you happen to have a favorite catalog or two you think worth sharing, drop me an e-mail so I can include it in one of the following articles. I am always interested in expanding the list, so if you have a candidate, pass it along via gardenerjeff@gmail.com.

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.