"While this weather may not seem conducive to thoughts of blooming flowers and ripening vegetables, the mail order seed and plant companies know otherwise. "

"The catalogs come pouring in at this time of the year, with "new and improved" varieties and all the old favorites. It is the time to dream and plan for what is to come, to make out long lists of seeds and plants to order. Lists that need to be revised and re-revised, as I realize there is no way I have the space or time to plant everything that I have marked to order. "

"There are also new and improved versions of tools and other equipment that just might make some of those gardening jobs a little easier."

"Dreaming is a significant part of the joy of gardening, imagining the yard coming to life with a variety of colorful flowers and flavorful vegetables, as winter turns to spring and spring to summer."

"Leafing through the catalogs, my eyes alight on one flower after another that would look beautiful growing in my garden. But will it grow here? How tall is it? How will it smell? Is it a perennial, a biennial, an annual? Do I have a spare corner to tuck it in, or is it suitable to replace another plant that has served its time and purpose. So many choices, so little time and space."

"Looking through catalogs for possible vegetables for the garden is no less exciting. The produce aisle at the grocery store only displays a small portion of food that can be grown and consumed. Catalogs advertise orange tomatoes with tiger-like stripes, radishes that are green on the outside and red on the inside, corn in all colors and for all uses, eggplants in varying shades of purple and ranging in shape from a baseball to a bat. The squashes are endless, and I could go on and on about peppers both sweet and hot, my particular favorites. "

"Then
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