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I love Christmas shopping. No, I'm not talking about battling down the High Street for gifts or fighting through crowds with a trolley laden with groceries. Who could possibly love that? My Christmas shopping involves delving into seed catalogues

As seed catalogues drop through my letterbox as predictably as falling autumn leaves, I face a dilemma. Each one is a veritable candy store, packed with sweets and treats to savour. I know what I like, and which varieties have performed well for me

I hope I’m not getting impatient in my advancing years. When the latest seed catalogues arrived I was determined to find out which were the quickest-growing salad crops.Gardening isn’t the best pursuit for anyone seeking instant gratification, and I

's these long evening spent leisurely flicking through seed and plant catalogues that are costing me dearly. After a first run-through, the list of 'must have' plants is far too long, so I have to go through again in more detail. This is meant to be a ruthless

-sized tomatoes.I had vowed never to bother with them again, but last spring I was tempted to sow seeds of a brand new variety sent to me to trial, and set for introduction in the 2008 seed catalogues. A new variety would be worth growing, surely?In short... no

that because I go for the dwarf ones - stocky, short varieties - which are perfect in pots. This one is 'Little Dorrit'; its flowers, with golden rays bursting out from a dark centre, are daintier than the giants. Seed catalogues offer varieties with double

' is described as 'mildly hot', but if you want something to blow your head off the seed catalogues compete with one another to offer the hottest. I'm not sure I'd call eating hot jalapeno or habanero a pleasurable experience; sweet and colourful peppers are more

!) Growing so easily from seed makes me wonder why I've never spotted it in any seed catalogues before, but there it is in both the Chiltern Seeds and Thompson & Morgan catalogues - a packet containing 150 seeds costs less than a third of the price I paid

.However, reading through seed catalogues last winter I discovered 'Emir', a brand new variety for 2008 from Mr Fothergill's, which had been bred specifically to be grown in our northern climate. A combination of tolerance to cold conditions and fast-maturing fruits

taste for single colours.Pictured above is a brand new zinnia that you may have discovered this year, but will be widely available in the 2011 seed catalogues. It's called 'Purple Prince' and I've been trialling it this summer. I love it! Growing up