If there’s anything that can get gardeners thinking about this year’s garden, it’s when those seed catalogs start arriving in your mailbox. Yes, there are online catalogs, but there’s something special about sitting down in front of the fireplace in a cozy chair and dreaming about your future garden with a pile of seed catalogs. There are many seasons in gardening but now we’re in the midst of seed catalog season.

If you don’t have seed catalogs showing up in your mail currently, that is easy to remedy. Everyone has their favorites, but a good place to start would be with Baker Creek, Johnny’s, Stokes, or Territorial Seed. Just visit the site and order a catalog. Baker Creek puts out an incredible catalog. It’s about a half inch thick and they charge for it, but most of them are free.

In these catalogs, and online, you’ll find a wealth of information on not only the variety of seeds you can choose from, but also information on disease resistance available in some seeds. This disease resistance typically comes from cross breeding plants. For example, on some seed descriptions you will see letters like F, F2, F3, PM, or TMV etc. These indicate which plants are going to have some degree of resistance to particular diseases. The letter F indicates resistance to fusarium wilt. PM is powdery mildew while TMV would be tobacco mosaic virus which affect a variety of plants. If you’ve had a problem with diseased plants in the past, starting with seeds that come with some degree of disease resistance is a good place to start.

At our Seed to Supper Farm where we grow vegetables to donate to area food pantries, we’ve had a problem with cucumber mosaic virus. So, this year we’ll be getting seeds with a built-in resistance to that disease. It’s a very earth friendly way to fight disease in your garden.

Seed packets will also contain information about how many days after starting your seeds you should expect to see germination. So, if you start your seeds and have gone a ways past the likely number of days predicted for germination, you know it might be time to try again.

These catalogs will also tell you how many days until you can harvest your vegetables. For example, lettuce is primarily a cool season crop in Oklahoma. So, let’s say the seed packet says that this particular lettuce needs 60 days to be ready to harvest. This lets you know that you need to get them planted so you can harvest before it starts to get hot in the summer. Or on the other side, when you can plant in the fall and still expect to get a harvest before freezing temperatures. Days to harvest is very valuable information.

Seed catalogs will also tell you if the seeds were grown using conventional or organic practices with organic seeds coming from plants that were grown organically. Since it’s typically a little more labor intensive to grow organically, organic seeds tend to cost a little more.

On some seed descriptions, you’ll notice that they are available pelleted. Pelleted seeds are primarily very small seeds that have been covered in a clay-based covering making them easier to handle. The only downside to pelleted seeds is that they don’t keep multiple years like standard seeds do.

When selecting tomato seeds, you’ll notice some are designated as either determinate or indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes produce one crop, all at once. Indeterminate tomato plants tend to produce tomatoes all season long. So, if you are wanting to grow tomatoes so you can stock up on homemade tomato sauce or perhaps salsa, determinate plants would be best because you’ll get your crop all at the same time. But, if you want to enjoy fresh tomatoes all season long, indeterminate would be the way to go.

Another thing you’ll notice in seed catalogs is the designation on tomatoes as either heirloom or hybrid. Heirloom tomatoes are those tomatoes whose seeds have been passed down from generation to generation, with the plant remaining virtually the same.

Hybrids are those that have been cross bred with different tomato plants to perhaps increase production or size of tomato etc. Hybrids are not GMOs (genetically modified plants). That is different. Cross pollinating is a natural process and anyone who has planted yellow squash or zucchini in close proximity likely knows, you can get some interesting looking vegetables.

If you want to save seeds from your tomatoes to use next year, you should get heirloom seeds since these are the same from generation to generation. With plants grown from hybrid seeds, their seed (if saved and re-planted) tend to revert back to one of the source plants before hybridization. Not a bad thing, you just might not get what you were expecting.

Also, we have a variety of garden centers that will be stocking seeds as well. Don’t forget our local vendors.

You can find a lot of information on our website about varieties that do well in Oklahoma and when to plant. Just go to our website (www.tulsamastergardeners.org), click on Lawn and Garden Help and the Vegetables. Or, if you would like a little training on how to become a better gardener, our Urban Gardener Vegetable Growing Class is available for sign up. See you in the garden!

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org. Photo: Tom Ingram