By Barbara Damrosch, published Thursday, February 8, 2007 in The Washington Post

"Never shop when you're hungry" is good advice. On the way home from work it's easy to fill the cart with food you don't need. On Saturday, after breakfast, there's a chance you'll stick to your list.

With seed shopping, though, you have no choice. You're starved for the taste of fresh garden produce. So here come the new seed catalogues to tempt you in midwinter, when your resistance is low.

I always succumb. Theoretically a seed is the world's biggest bargain: One tiny speck yields so much food! But I'm lured by catalogue descriptions into buying far more than I can grow. Luckily, most seeds keep their spark of life for years if stored in a dry place, and I share extras with neighbors.

Recently I spent a stormy day by the fire with a tall stack of catalogues and surveyed the riches of spring 2007. The top starlet of the season seems to be a very dark brown, mildly spicy chili-type pepper called Holy Molé, highly touted as the first hybrid pasilla pepper, an elongated type that's a current favorite with chefs. It was chosen this year as a coveted All-America Selection -- an award given after objective trials in test gardens nationwide. Holy Molé was repeatedly praised as the perfect pepper for molé, a luscious Mexican sauce sometimes enriched with unsweetened chocolate. I'm skeptical. Making the sauce browner has little to do with producing a good molé, and some "chocolate"-colored peppers struggle to get past muddy purple-green. Organic Gardening magazine gave it a positive write-up but noted that three of its four testers would not grow it a second year, and it scored low for flavor. I'll wait on that one.

Dark vegetables are a big hit in the 2007 lineup. Thompson & Morgan is among the catalogues introducing the Black Cherry tomato, with dusky purplish skin. I like the heirloom black tomatoes I've grown, even though they aren't very prolific. A cherry version sounds great, because cherries have higher yields. This one would look great in a bowl with orange Sungold cherry tomatoes and some red ones, such as the Cook's Garden's Ladybug, a crack-resistant cherry ("Our Tomato Taste Testing Winner of 2006").

To read the full article at washingtonpost.com, please go here

Photo credit: Angelo Cesare

Seed sources on the Web:
Thompson & Morgan, http://www.thompson-morgan.com; Cook's Garden, http://www.cooksgarden.com; Burpee, http://www.burpee.com; Nichols, http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com; Renee's Garden, http://www.reneesgarden.com; Pinetree Garden Seeds, http://www.superseeds.com; Seeds of Change, http://www.seedsofchange.com; John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com; Bountiful Gardens, http://www.bountifulgardens.org; Johnny's Selected Seeds, http://www.johnnyseeds.com; Fedco Seeds, http://www.fedcoseeds.com; Seeds From Italy, http://www.growitalian.com; Vermont Bean Seed, http://www.vermontbean.com; Shumway's, http://www.rhshumway.com.