Decoding Your Garden Seed Catalogs

Seed catalogs are starting to fill my mailbox with the imminent arrival of spring, and they’re one of my favorite ways to pass a rainy day. Parked on the couch, marker in hand, I can spend an entire afternoon circling seed choices and dogearing pages with the giddiness of a kid in a candy store. One of my Facebook followers put it best: it’s one of those times when the eyes are bigger than the stomach (or in my case, bigger than the garden).

I’ve been buying and starting seeds every year sin...