I confess, I am all talk and no game when it comes to gardening. I slightly blame my laziness on city living as well as the bounty to be had at my local farmers market, which is a significantly smaller footprint than the grocery store. Anyway, for a precious four and one-half months out of the year, my hook ups are Brunkow Cheese which has these amazing crystals (by the way, they had the cutest guy working the stand last year), River Valley Kitchens' Key Lime Mango Salsa which makes me slovenly lick the jar, Seedling Farms for terrific seasonal fruit, Lange's Farm for superior and consistent produce, and the rest of the too-many-to-name top notch vendors.
Needless to say, I vicariously live my gardening fantasy on the web. I have email subscriptions to Gardener's Supply, The Tasteful Garden and, as of today, D. Landreth Seed Company. Let us hope the sign-up today was not in vain. You see, Landreth is in a bit of a financial bind to the point of going under and needs to sell one million catalogs to get rid of all of its debt. Now, I know that might sound a wee fishy. However, listen to its story. The company has been around since 1784, that is the year the Revolutionary War officially ended. So, I imagine Mr. Landreth in the field, wearing culottes and showing Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington the lay of the land. Additionally, you would not be longing for a GMO-free, home grown tomato in the middle of December without the Landreth Company introducing it to home gardeners back in the day. Lastly, Landreth has the same values as PoopBags and is completely an open book. Here is its very justifiable reason to sell catalogs:
We could have this catalogue printed overseas, and the printing costs would be 1/4th the costs of printing the catalogue in the United States, but we are not going to take American business overseas. The catalogue is designed by a small, Baltimore-based and family-owned business, Victor DiPace Associates and it is printed by a family-owned local printing company. Producing this catalogue is far more expensive than it is for most companies who are outsourcing their printing requirements overseas. We charge for our catalogue to help with some, but not all, of the costs to produce and mail. Each catalogue that you purchase from Landreth is helping to keep an American employed and therefore making this country stronger.
The concept ties easily back into what Treehugger.com wrote about Landreth:
Seed companies are becoming more and more consolidated, and, for the most part, consolidated under giant companies like Monsanto who would love nothing more than to completely control the seed market. As these conglomerates take over, they decide to only produce and sell the seed that they deem most profitable. This means that variety in our food supply is quickly dwindling.
Let's rationalize that $5.00 catalog purchase:
1. "It's a caramel macchiato" - as the Boss would say. Not Springsteen, the PoopBags Boss.
2. You can give it as a holiday gift.
3. Obama's whole 2008 campaign was all about $5.00 donations. Landreth only needs 200,000 people to rise to the occasion.
4. If you garden, you have a new source for seeds.
5. If you live in a city and cannot garden, you can longingly dream of gardening while you thumb through the Landreth catalog.
Editor's note: I apologize if the links were too annoyingly abundant, but I want everyone to know about the fantastic, niche small innovative businesses that keep us healthy.
