It may be the depths of winter, but I know there will soon be spring in my mailbox.

Yes, there is always the sour feeling of discovering a package from the Internal Revenue Service in the mailbox in early January. I always hope those tax forms are sandwiched between a couple of seed catalogs.

I plant my perfect garden every January…at least in my imagination. Leafing through the pages of each catalog, I drool over photos of crisp carrots, juicy tomatoes, and leafy lettuce. I start drawing up my garden plan, with tomatoes and peppers rotated away from the little plot where they grew last season.

In some respects, seed catalogs haven’t changed much since I received my first one while in high school eons ago. But one major change has been that organic seeds and gardening products have crept into the pages. Gardeners can order organic seeds, fertilizer and even beneficial insects from those catalogs these days.

At least two companies, Seeds of Change (www.seedsofchange.com) and Botanical Interests (http://www.botanicalinterests.com) have catalogs and on-line order forms focused exclusively on organic and heirloom varieties.

This time of years reminds us that taxes are still one of the two unshakable realities of life. But it’s also the time of year for our green gardens to take root in our imagination.