In the dead of winter, a little ray of sunshine showed up in my mailbox recently. It’s the Burpee seed catalog, which in the dreary days of winter can be a God-send for the soul.

There’s just something about seeing that red, ripe tomato that appears every year on the front cover. Being a tomato lover, this time of year really gets me down. I plant a garden in my backyard every year and can’t wait for the tomatoes to get ripe for picking and eating.

Everyone knows you can’t get a decent tomato this time of year. We tomato lovers basically have to put up with canned tomatoes until the real thing appears again in the summer.

To me, there is something so magical about planting a seed or plant and watching it grow just a little every day, every week, until finally you see an emerging baby vegetable, whether it be a tomato, pepper, cucumber or whatever your heart desires. My brother Chris is a big fan of squash and okra. I, too, love a fresh from the garden yellow squash or zucchini, but I’d just as soon skip the okra.

What I love about the catalog is seeing all of the new varieties of plants and vegetables available this year. This year, there is a new “Sweet Seedless” variety of tomato and a “Snack Pack” hybrid watermelon that is the company’s first true “personal size” watermelon that weighs only three to four pounds.

The other thing I love about the Burpee catalog is all of the vibrant photos of beautiful flowers. One of my fellow reporters, Morgan Wall, was oohing and ahhing over the varieties of new daisies. They are her favorite. Although not a daisy, the company has come out with a new mix of Echinacea that boosts colors of yellow, dark pink, white and red. The picture in the catalog is quite eye-catching.

My uncle Charles Boles, who taught horticulture and viticulture at Surry Community College, says Burpee knows just how to get you by mailing out the catalog in the dead of winter so that you can start imagining what your garden will look like this spring.

I think this year, after much consideration, I must order the “Hot tomato” collection, which is a variety of all my favorite tomatoes. And for those of you who don’t know, don’t try to plant your tomato plants by seed. Buy the plant. You practically have to be a horticulturist to grow a tomato from seed. Trust me, I tried unsuccessfully many years running. I won’t do it again.

What I am doing though, just as the Burpee seed catalog people have predicted, is pouring over the pages deciding just what I want to plant this spring, which by the way will be on March 20 this year. I know that it can’t get here soon enough for me.

Mondee Tilley is a staff reporter for The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.