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In the middle of winter, thumbing through catalogs is one of the best ways to have an exceptional summer garden, where all the plants are lush and full and their leaves are green and flawless, vegetables are profuse and perfectly formed and trees and bushes grow and flourish. Temporarily erased are the realities of late spring frosts blackening everything to a cinder stub, swarms of aphids coating and curling leaves, aspen trunks oozing something nasty looking or deer depleting every precious tulip once proudly displayed near the front door.

In addition to the pretty pictures, catalogs provide pertinent information about the tried and true as well as the latest and greatest and should be thoroughly scrutinized to expand your repertoire, as confirmed when my friend Frederica said she didn’t realize radishes came in colors other than red. Radishes come in all shapes and sizes and can be red, shades of red, white, red and white, or even green and white. They also usually have cool names (almost as good as paint color names) such as Ping Pong, Cherry Belle, White Icicle and Purple Plum. Before you get too carried away and order anything or everything, edit your list by reading on to learn the best growing conditions (sun, shade, soil), desirable zones (wisteria won’t grow here but peonies thrive), or growing times (anything in the vegetable world stating 90 days is a big challenge).

Back to radishes: They come in packets containing about 250 seeds, germinate easily, mature quickly and are ready to harvest almost before you turn your back, so they are wonderful for gardening with children. Even if you really like radishes, they should be planted successively to ensure a steady crop rather than an avalanche of them all ready at the same time. If you really want to challenge yourself, you can always study the hundreds of daylily varieties arrayed page after page and try to pick only two.

In other words, catalogs are a veritable encyclopedia of information for decision making regarding seeds, starter vegetables, bulbs, annual or perennial plants, bushes and trees.

Whether you order from catalogs or utilize them for research to buy locally, you’ll be better informed from your hours of winter sleuthing and know you can toss that underperforming clematis because it’s for a warmer zone or that you should move the peonies to a sunnier spot and not plant them so deep. Or you’ll give tomatoes just one more try with a variety like Sweet 100 that requires only 65 growing days to maturity instead of that needier 90- to 100-day variety you keep trying but harvest green and golf ball sized every year.

If catalogs or the back of a seed packet don’t give you all the information you need, call the Extension Office with your questions and a master gardener will clear things up for you. Call any time of the year; we always leave the light on.

Jane McLeod is a master gardener with the CSU Extension Routt County. Call 970-879-0825 with questions.