Raise your hand if you rejoice at seeing “spam” in your email inbox. That would be nobody I know. Many of us have subscribed to the Do Not Call lists that have actually succeeded in eliminating the dinner hour phone solicitations. We even seem to be getting less junk mail. But I still get excited when my seed catalogs start arriving, even though the growing stack includes many I didn’t request. In fact, yesterday I got four: an old standby, Seymour’s Selected Seeds, but also The Vermont Bean Seed Company (~100 varieties of beans in addition to other common and rare vegetables), Totally Tomatoes (40 pages of tomato varieties), and one that makes me feel like a special customer, McClure & Zimmerman (Quality Flowerbulb Brokers for the Dedicated Bulb Enthusiast). I haven’t figured out why they all have the same address in Randolph, Wisconsin, since the catalog style and seed offerings differ substantially; maybe it’s just a catalog fulfillment center with a room full of computers and not a single agricultural item anywhere in sight. This year, I’ve made two great Internet finds. Dave’s Gardens, a consumer-friendly site with a lot of information contributed by home gardeners, has a Garden Watchdog section where readers rate and comment on the seeds and service of many sellers. That’s where I first read about Renee’s Garden which has to have the best seed packets ever and horticultural information on their website about every unusual variety they carry. The image that accompanies this entry shows the components of a sample Renee’s packet, along with an amaranthus plant in this year’s bridge garden. In the end, I will set aside a couple of evenings in January with a highlighter and last year’s seed list, make my selections from the colorful array of catalogs, and then order online. Even though I notice that Renee’s Garden does not even offer a “real” catalog and may represent the future of seed sales solely on the Internet, this is one arena where I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable going paperless.