Catalogs plant seeds of overbuying addiction

To grow plants from seed is to have a seed problem. If you like to grow plants from seed it is biologically impossible to not end up with way too many seeds and then sow way too many of those seeds.

I know this to be true not just because I have seen the seed collections of many gardeners, but I also manage my own. Many years ago it moved from a random cardboard box to a pair of plastic bins that look like small suitcases. A system meant for photo storage (the old-fashioned kind you can hold, not the ones that live in a cloud or on a phone) has been turned into a seed vault, one for flowers and one for vegetables and herbs. Each of the little boxes that fit in the case is carefully marked with a label declaring what type of seeds are inside, a sure sign that the original organizing project was done in the depths of winter when gardeners have time for such details as printed labels.

And that worked well for awhile. But in recent years, the cardboard box has returned for seed overflow. You see, the seed suitcases are beyond stuffed and yet there are more seeds to be stored.

This is only part of the seed problem. The other half of it is starting way too many seeds. I am guilty of killing more seedlings than any late frost ever has because I just can’t get them all out of trays and into the garden in spring. It’s incredibly wasteful. I coddle them inside under grow lights, thin them, fertilize them, nurture them through adjusting to the outside world and then, when the busiest weeks in spring arrive, I forget about them while I rush to plant other things and then they are gone.

And I assure you, I am not alone. Across the country, fellow seed addicts are wrestling with an incredible urge to open the latest seed catalog — and the seed companies know exactly who to send those to — and place just a little order. There’s a promo discount code after all.

But there is reason to hope that the cycle can be broken. I haven’t ordered a single seed yet this year. And over the weekend I actually looked through my seed collection before ordering new packets of some of my “must-grow” favorites, something I rarely do out of an absurd fear that someone else might buy them all before I can.

When I searched for some of my favorite snapdragon seeds from the Madame Butterfly series — a beautiful taller-growing variety that produces open, azalea-type flowers from spring to frost with a short lull in the hottest part of summer — I found not only half a pack of my favorite color (bronze) but also four other colors. And two more unopened envelopes of bronze and another color, all equalling about 300 snapdragon seeds. And then I did something unprecedented. I did not order more.

So be patient with your seed-starting gardening friends at this time. Seed catalogs are arriving every day and they are trying to resist.