Every December, Brian and I make the 12-hour drive out to Indiana to visit his family for Christmas. One way we pass the time on the road is by going through that year's seed catalogue to pick out crops for next year's garden. We interrupted this routine once in 2023, when we were trying out a new seed supplier that didn't offer a printed catalogue. But since we didn't have much luck with them, last year we went back to our old seed supplier, Fedco, and our old routine of browsing the catalogue during the drive.
This year, though, we hit another snag. Fedco, unbeknownst to us, also stopped mailing out printed catalogues. You can still order one for a $3 fee (which you can recoup with a $3 coupon that's included), but we didn't learn about that option until this weekend—too late to order a catalogue and receive it in time for our trip.
Fortunately, we were pretty satisfied with most of the varieties we'd planted in 2025. True, our Waltham butternut squash was a pretty disappointing performer this year, giving us only six squash totaling 14 pounds. But since it's the same variety that gave us a whopping 42 pounds last year, we're not prepared to write it off yet. The same applies to our our Provider green bean plants, which provided only half a pound of beans in 2025 but nearly 3 pounds in 2024. And while our South Wind and Boston Pickling cucumbers only gave us 15 fruits in total, that's better than the measly 6 we got in 2024. Besides, Brian blames the mediocre harvest partly on a brutal summer heat wave that kept us out of the garden for several days, causing us to miss a few cukes until they were too ripe to use.
However, there are a couple of veggie varieties we're planning to dump in 2026. Our Banana frying pepper, for instance, produced only 4 smallish peppers, so we're going to ditch it next year and either try a new variety or stick to the better-performing Carmens and Aconcaguas. We may also bid a sad farewell to our much-loved Pineapple tomato. Its two vines produced only 12 tomatoes between them, and while those few fruits were both large and tasty, we'd probably be better off devoting the space to the much more prolific Premios and San Marzanos, which gave us 58 and 50 fruits, respectively.
One crop we're not quite sure about is our new Pirat lettuce. Although it was touted as a "much more bolt resistant" version of the Marvel of Four Seasons that performed so well for us in 2023 and 2024, it actually bolted by August, leaving us without lettuce until the fall crop came in. So I was considering supplementing it with a summer lettuce blend to tide us through the hot season. However, when I consulted Fedco's list of lettuce varieties, I found that its so-called Summer Lettuce Blend isn't likely to do any better: it promises only that "most years" it can "stand well into July." Given that the Pirat made it until August, and a brutally hot August at that, we might as well stick with that.
Assuming, that is, that we'll be ordering from Fedco. While they carry most of the varieties we liked from this year, they don't have San Marzano tomatoes, the first plum variety we've ever tried that worked really well for us. We only have five seeds left out of the packet we ordered from Botanical Interests in 2023, so ideally we'd like some more—and if we're going back to Botanical Interests for those, we could just get more Marvel of Four Seasons lettuce, as well as some of the Salad Bowl summer blend that worked so well for us in 2023. But on the other hand, we're also down to only seven Carmen pepper seeds, which Botanical Interests doesn't carry. So, no matter where we order, we won't be able to get everything we'd like.
Under the circumstances, we'll most likely stick to Fedco. The five San Marzano seeds we have left are probably enough to give us at least two healthy plants, and even if we only get one, we can make up for it by planting more of the Premios. Or we could try a new variety in hopes of finding one that's as tasty as the Pineapple but more productive. That seems like a safer bet than trying to get four plants out of our 7 remaining Carmen pepper seeds, and/or rolling the dice on a new variety that almost certainly won't perform as well.
So that's our plan for next year: More of the same, with possibly one new tomato in the mix. I've got my eye on Goldie, a huge orange tomato that's described as "very productive," relatively quick to ripen, and offering "rich flavor with an extraordinary velvety texture." If it's as advertised, it may make up for the loss of our beloved Pineapple. And if not, we'll still be fine with our trusty Premios, San Marzanos, and Sun Golds.
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