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Burpee’s New Year’s Resolution Garden <br>plants seeds of change

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I’m about to commit garden writer sacrilege, but here goes: I hate seed catalogs. Too many options, too much color, too many variables. I want a seed personal shopper -- someone to tell me what to buy, when and how to plant it, and then I’ll happily do the rest.

Enter Burpee’s New Year’s Resolution Garden (pictured left), essentially a packet of seed packets. The marketing pitch is that each corresponds to a common New Year’s resolution. Want to lose weight? Grow lettuce. Want to spend more time with the family? Grow sunflowers together. Want to save money? Grow your own tomatoes. It’s a cute idea, but what I love is the ease of getting seven packs of seeds for $10, without weighing 47 tomato choices.

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Burpee tried this idea last year with the Money Garden, a group of carrot, pepper, tomato, bean and pea seeds that would ostensibly help people save money by growing food in their backyard. ‘Obviously you can just buy seeds and make your own money garden,’ said Burpee CEO George Ball, ‘but we did this as a marketing promotion for people who are on the fence about gardening.’

So what comes in the New Year’s Resolution pack? In addition to sunflowers, lettuce and tomatoes, there are seeds for Monarda Bergamo, which attracts bees (steward the environment); a mix of annual cutting flowers (to reduce stress); carrots (make better food choices); and pole bean blue lake (which apparently require exercise). Each pack comes with an illustrated poster with a garden-layout plan.

Burpee doesn’t sell these seed packs in stores, or in their catalog, but they are available on Burpee’s website. -- Deborah Netburn

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