I once came across the results from a competition for The Best Job in the World. The runner-up was the person who built rockets and castles out of lego for store displays; the winner was the guy who drove up and down the state of Vermont all autumn long, tracking peak color.

But what about whoever thinks up names of plants for seed catalogs? Oh Happy Day tomatoes, Dragon Roll peppers, Magic Molly potatoes – inspirational; Jack Be Little pumpkins, Pesto Party basil, Black Cat petunias, Bees Knees monarda (it’s short) – informative. The possibilities are dazzling.

And I am dazzled. It’s hard to keep the size of my fenced garden in mind as these voluptuous images, promising desirable traits, flow out of my mailbox. I sit by my window with a cup of tea, my cat, the catalogs, and post-it notes to mark all the pages that have stuff I want. It’s only when the catalogs bristle to bursting with neon colored post-its that I will sit down and get real, pull half the markers out, and order.

No doubt producing the new hybrid comes first, but how about getting a name first, and breeding a product to match? Crowd My Roots tomatoes. Squeeze In eggplant. Vertical pumpkin vines. Works With Asparagus Cosmos. I would splurge on extra post-its for those.

Meanwhile, here’s my January gardening: the windowsill.

narcissus, jasmine, heliotrope, and amaryllis