Seed catalog review

This time of year our mail box is chock full of seed catalog. Every year we get more and more so we thought it would be fun to highlight some of the more interesting, useful and unusual ones, so here is our seed catalog review.

The other day we received a catalog that we have not seen before. It is R.H. Shumway’s Illustrated Garden Guide. The first thing we noticed was the size. Not the thickness, this catalog is 10 inches wide and 13 1/2 inches tall. For you metric types that’s about 14 furlongs by half a hogs head.

The catalog is profusely illustrated in black and white, much like the wall street journal and there is a photo of the old boy him self with the caption, ” The American Pioneer Seedsman”.

The “Guide” is more of a catalog with the usual items and a few odd balls like cranberry plants. But just because it calls its self a guide doesn’t make it so. In order for a catalog to be a guide there should be some growing tips and information. Although this catalog has a feel like a farmers almanac, there is non of the sage advice we were hoping for.

We went to the website and were more disappointed. It is so bad we will not put a link here but if you try you should be able to figure it out. Any site that has images that claim, “no image” needs work.
I think they have a good idea but poor execution. We would give this catalog a 2 on a scale from 1 to 10.