Savoring Spring's Temptations

"Never shop when you're hungry" is good advice. On the way home from work it's easy to fill the cart with food you don't need. On Saturday, after breakfast, there's a chance you'll stick to your list.

With seed shopping, though, you have no choice. You're starved for the taste of fresh garden produce. So here come the new seed catalogues to tempt you in midwinter, when your resistance is low.

I always succumb. Theoretically a seed is the world's biggest bargain: One tiny speck yields so much food! But I'm lured by catalogue descriptions into buying far more than I can grow. Luckily, most seeds keep their spark of life for years if stored in a dry place, and I share extras with neighbors.

Recently I spent a stormy day by the fire with a tall stack of catalogues and surveyed the riches of spring 2007. The top starlet of the season seems to be a very dark brown, mildly spicy chili-type pepper called Holy Molé, highly touted as the first hybrid pasilla pepper, an elongated type that's a current favorite with chefs. It was chosen this year as a coveted All-America Selection -- an award given after objective trials in test gardens nationwide. Holy Molé was repeatedly praised as the perfect pepper for molé, a luscious Mexican sauce sometimes enriched with unsweetened chocolate. I'm skeptical. Making the sauce browner has little to do with producing a good molé, and some "chocolate"-colored peppers struggle to get past muddy purple-green. Organic Gardening magazine gave it a positive write-up but noted that three of its four testers would not grow it a second year, and it scored low for flavor. I'll wait on that one.

Dark vegetables are a big hit in the 2007 lineup. Thompson & Morgan is among the catalogues introducing the Black Cherry tomato, with dusky purplish skin. I like the heirloom black tomatoes I've grown, even though they aren't very prolific. A cherry version sounds great, because cherries have higher yields. This one would look great in a bowl with orange Sungold cherry tomatoes and some red ones, such as the Cook's Garden's Ladybug, a crack-resistant cherry ("Our Tomato Taste Testing Winner of 2006").

Another recurrent theme is non-bolting basil. There's a concept! Burpee and Nichols both sell one called Pesto Perpetuo, perennial in warm climates (not ours) and perhaps less intent on forming seeds. Its light green leaves are splashed in darker green and edged with white. Offered only as started plants, this variety differs from Burpee's Summerlong, a low-growing annual that doesn't form seed at all and thus remains compact and leafy. Both sound great. I'll also look for Italian Cameo basil from Renee's Garden (sold in stores, not from a catalogue), a low, bushy type suitable for containers or for a garden edging.

Many of the most tempting offerings are "new old" vegetables: heirlooms that suddenly everybody wants to grow. The delicious old Alma Paprika pepper has reappeared at Pinetree Garden Seeds and Seeds of Change. Both also have Lakota squash, with rich orange flesh and flame-marked skin. John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds has resurrected the heirloom purple sprouting broccoli, which produces over a long period and would be gorgeous as a crudite. Bountiful Gardens carries it as well. And Johnny's Selected Seeds just introduced three flavorsome Italian heirloom tomatoes with green shoulders -- currently the rage with chefs in bella Italia, despite their unripe appearance.

The heirloom Tiger Eye bean is "among the most beautiful of all beans," exults Fedco Seeds, "bright golden ochre with maroon swirls." Seeds of Change has just listed it, too. I have no willpower when faced with a two-page spread of multicolored dried beans. Nor can I resist the one-two punch of beans whose pods and seeds are both winners. I'll snap up Seeds From Italy's Bobis a Grano Nero, a Blue Lake type with black seeds. And Seed Savers' Good Mother Ballard, a pole bean whose seeds are flecked with purple and white, or their Red Swan, purple pods with pinto beans inside. I hate to admit I'd buy Vermont Bean Seed's Pink Floyd just for its name. And Shumway's Yin Yang Bean: half white with a black dot and half black with a white dot. Far out!

Trying new varieties enlivens the annual routine of sowing and reaping and is more fun than planting the tried-and-true each time. Falling for hyped prose is the gardener's version of playing the lottery. And sometimes even I can keep a critical eye open in the grip of seed madness. Take Nichols's white-flowered borage -- please. The whole point of borage is its intense, true-blue flowers. What were they thinking?

Sources on the Web: Thompson & Morgan, http://www.thompson-morgan.com; Cook's Garden, http://www.cooksgarden.com; Burpee, http://www.burpee.com; Nichols, http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com; Renee's Garden, http://www.reneesgarden.com; Pinetree Garden Seeds, http://www.superseeds.com; Seeds of Change, http://www.seedsofchange.com; John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com; Bountiful Gardens, http://www.bountifulgardens.org; Johnny's Selected Seeds, http://www.johnnyseeds.com; Fedco Seeds, http://www.fedcoseeds.com; Seeds From Italy, http://www.growitalian.com; Vermont Bean Seed, http://www.vermontbean.com; Shumway's, http://www.rhshumway.com.