In the 1950s, it was called Rocket. It grew wild, and was a native American plant, and it shot up in no time at all, like a V-2. A lot of country folk raised it because it was a tender and tasty green for salads.

I started to see it in the 1970s and 1980s in supermarkets. It was called Roquette. The french spelling was intended to make people think it was a fancy imported green.

Then they changed the name to Arugula, and people made fun of Barack Obama for eating it, as if it were a salad green for millionaires instead of being something that was cheaper than iceberg lettuce.

The Wonderful Week

The twelve days of Christmas - this is day two - are wonderful to many of us because this is when seed catalogs traditionally arrive. During the cold dark months of January and February, they provide their own brand of hope while one is sitting on the porcelain throne, or when bundled in a blanket next to the wood stove.

There's a lot that's been printed about women's "biological clock", as if the urge to become a mother were nearly irresistable in that gender, while men are ridiculed for their similar imperative, as being the victim of excessive hormonal levels. I would disagree with that. In the late 20s and in the 30s, as women's biological clocks tick louder and louder, you find more and more men getting tanks of tropical fish, and planting gardens. If we don't have our own wombs, we settle for cold fish and warm loam as our breeding grounds.

The Supreme Court's very definition of pornography, in fact, incorporates the word prurient in it. That's a medical term that means "itchy." Pornography isn't necessarily about undraped genitals; it's whatever causes us to itch in that way, which could be high-heel shoes or bald heads. There's little, however, that is more effective than a seed catalog at making one itchy to run his fingers through soft warm soil and plant seeds, making sure to jump back immediately so that we aren't poked in the eye by rapidly sprouting plants.

Diplotaxis tenuifolia

Everybody knows about Burpee seeds. Many gardeners know about Johnny's Selected Seeds. It's the serious addict to soil-philia, though, that knows about Nichol's Garden Nursery.

Burpee sells a lot of flowers. Their catalog seems oriented to people who have nicely-manicured beds of attractive plants. Johnny's Selected Seeds sells a lot of vegetables. Their catalog seems oriented to people who are more concerned about putting wholesome and tasty organic foods on the family dinner table.

Nichols, though, seems oriented to the Mother Earth News crowd, trying to keep a hippie commune solvent. I don't know how their catalog gets printed these days, but 30 years ago, when Burpee and Johnny's and everybody else were using commercial printers to provide full-color illustrations on coated paper, Nichols employees were using the off-season to print their own catalog on 8.5x11 recycled paper with a Multilith offset press, stapling the sheets together. It's labor-intensive to do that, but it was their labor.

Elephant Garlic Never Forgets

And they prominently featured Elephant Garlic in their catalog. Apparently, they were the original nursery to promote this plant. In a hippie-to-hippie conspiratorial tone, they advised that Elephant Garlic was the ideal crop for someone with small acreage. It's milder than real garlic, and has huge cloves which consumers find highly appealing. You could "frequent yields" of over 5 tons of elephant garlic per acre, they advised, and with each order, they did (and still do) include a booklet on growing, selling, and mail-order marketing of elephant garlic.

I remember figuring that if they say 5 tons, you could probably figure on actually getting 2 or 3 tons, and 5000 pounds at $2/pound would be $10,000. Not bad, considering that it would hardly be a full-time job howing an acre of garlic, and harvesting them would be a lot easier than most other truck crops. It's not like garlic goes bad in a week like tomatoes do.

A Silver Lining In Dementia

These days, though, that the rocket looks more appealing to me. I haven't gardened, the last few years, because I have such difficulty getting up and down, but with Blondie unable to work due to her dementia, she'd be available to help me get up and down, and she probably would enjoy gardening together.

What's more, Nichols has the plants I want to raise. They emphasize herbs and such, things that cost a minor fortune in the supermarket, and aren't available at the scratch-and-dent closeout stores like Amelia's. It doesn't take much space nor much work to raise them. It takes only a little room for a big crop of butternut squash, which is absurdly expensive in the stores.

And then there's Gladiator. That's the new variety of Arugula they're offering this year. Iceberg is tasteless but crisp, and it's hard to grow. Red leaf lettuce is tasty and easy to grow but while it's great in a sandwich, it's too limp for salads. Arugula is tasty and crisp, and easy to grow, and Gladiator grows 25% faster than regular Rocket.

Growing Stuff Indoors

It's not just marijuana that gets grown indoors, of course. Cheese, beer, and wine need to grown, as surely as any plant is, and Nichols has the supplies for doing this as well, even to the point of carrying handles for carboys and two-handled lever corkers.

If I recall correctly, the catalogs of 30 years ago said that the person operating the Multilith press was the owner's daughter. That would be Rose Marie Nichols McGee, who is now the owner, rather than the owner's daughter. The photograph here shows Rose Marie and her husband Keane McGee. How could anyone look at those faces and question whether Nichols is a good place to do business? The hippie chick is still a hippie chick.

No Sellouts, They

And according to business references, they still have fewer than ten employees, although they're doing between 1 and 3 million in annual sales. I spoke on the phone with them thirty years ago, and they were real down home folk, pleasant, eager to please, and not the slightest bit pushy. They're the kind of people you could trust with your secret recipe for barbecue, knowing that they'd never tell a soul.

A lot of people have "sold out to the man", in '60s parlance, and what do they have to show for it? Unemployment that's rapidly running out, and a house that's close to foreclosure. The only real security is to be your own boss, and provide something of real value to your customers. Oh, and growing your product, instead of buying it for resale, sure gives you nice profit margins.

You can request a print catalog here and download their catalog as a PDF here. I've done both. It's easier to search through the PDF of the catalog, but when it comes to "wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin'" (to steal a Dusty Springfield lyric) there just isn't anything that beats a catalog in that little room at the end of the hall.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
12 Days of Christmas - arugula - beer - biological clock - Burpee - butternut squash - cheese - Dusty Springfield - Elephant Garlic - Gladiator - herbs - Johnny's Selected Seed - Mother Earth News - Nichols Garden Nursery - prurient - rocket - Rose Marie Nichols McGee - seed catalog - tropical fish - wine