Seed catalog / Samenkatalog

I have been irritated by sites that give me German if my browser is set to German. One such used to be Thompson and Morgan’s famous seed catalogue. They are famous for promising you can grow all sorts of obscure things that in my experience don’t come up, but the catalogue in English and German, together with colour pictures of the flowers and vegetables, is nice, or would be, if it weren’t for the language problem. Here’s a link to the German version.

cabbage.jpg

But just now I had the English version, because I had my browser set to US English for Google experiments. Anyway, there now seem to be language flags to click on, although I still find the site a bit confusing. It would be easier just to order the catalogue in two languages – they have a lot there, but it isn’t easy to find.The German pages with pictures of plants have most descriptions in German, but the occasional one is English. ‘Add to basket’ is ‘DAZU’. Clicking on a picture for more detail produces:

bq. Einjährig
Blüte: Sommer
Höhe: 2 Inches
Position: Volle Sonne
Ideal für: Hanging Baskets, Beete, Rabatten, Kübel, Umrandungen und Wege, Steingärten
Gärtner-Tipp
Keimung: Einfach
Pflege: Einfach

Well, it isn’t all there, but it isn’t machine translation either.

Here’s an example:

bq. Beschreibung: Ein gutes Beispiel dafür, wie abwechslungsreich die Kohlsorten sind. Diese Sorte wird seit fast zwei Jahrhunderten auf der Insel Jersey angebaut. Wenn sie bei Frühlingsbeginn ausgesät wird, hat sie im Herbst ihre Erntegröße von 1,5 bis 2,25 m erreicht. Nach dem Abschneiden und Trocknen liefert der Kohl ein schönes Holz, das zwar leicht aber dennoch stark genug ist, um daraus wunderschöne SPAZIERSTOCKE zu fertigen. Höhe: 1,5 bis 2,25 m.

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