I'm sure if you are a vegetable gardener, or any other gardener for that matter, you are anxiously looking at many of the seed catalogs you are retrieving from your mailbox.

Looking at all the great pictures and descriptions of the fruits and vegetables listed in the catalog can sometimes be confusing. When you pick up that garden seed catalog, you need to have an open mind before you order.

One of the first things to remember is to make sure you have talked over with your family as to what they would like in the vegetable or flower garden. For instance, as far as tomatoes are concerned, if there has to be but one tomato in your garden, try making it the Mortgage Lifter variety discovered by William Estler from Barboursville, West Virginia.

The Mortgage Lifter tomato discovered back in the 1920s was a tomato consumers are looking for today. It's a tomato with sweet flavor, solid in texture, low acid and large with a thin skin. It was a tomato bred almost a hundred years ago that gardeners are striving to find and consume even today.

With that said, you should strive to have about 10 percent new varieties in your garden. There are some great advancements in variety development, and the serious gardener needs to share in these new found discoveries. There isn't anything more exciting than the anticipation of growing something new in the garden each year.

If you, for some odd reason, haven't received a new seed catalog, all you need to do is pick up one of the many home and garden magazines available at the newsstand and look for the seed catalog advertisements.