Lot of stuff I’ve been reading say to buy around mid December when the seed catalogs come out, but which ones?
I usually just get seeds and plants from Home Depot, it’s done the job, but I want to find some nice heirlooms and/or varieties they don’t carry. Also screw “white label” seeds. But that’s another discussion.
So this last year I got some different seeds from Lee Valley, but I wasn’t a huge fan, still felt like Home Depot just under another name.
So what’s your guys favorite website or place to get seeds. And when do you find the best time to order.
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I can second Johnny’s seeds and have gotten quite a few good uncommon varieties from them.
There’s also MI Gardener that I’ve gotten several heirloom varieties for a very reasonable cost. YouTuber and Master gardener who eventually opened a physical store dedicated to teaching others how grow more plants than they kill.
I’ve also used Rare seeds for other less common varieties
Is my go to for natives. Search by region, bloom time, color etc. Order them in the winter for cold stratifying either direct in the ground or winter sowing in a container
Sow True Seed has been my go to for years. Lots of cool, new and old heirlooms to try. If ordering something transplants/bulbs/slips you need to do it months ahead of time, but their seeds are pretty much available all year.
Native American Seed Company, but they’re pretty specific to native Texas plants.
For veggies, I’ve had success with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.
Just a heads up Baker Creek has a dubious history of right leaning support and using their adopted Asian son as a prop to advertise Asian veggie seeds in their catalog until folks online asked about it. Just a lot of questionable behavior.
http://www.theredneckhippie.com/2019/04/baker-creek-seeds-supports-racism.html?m=1
https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/comments/j1kqfp/controversy_with_baker_creek/
I remember reading about the Cliven Bundy thing a couple years ago and still don’t quite understand Baker Creek’s fault there. Dude’s a world-renowned watermelon farmer in addition to right-wing terrorist, and it doesn’t seem like Baker Creek did anything at all to support the man except ask him about growing watermelons
Cliven bundy has a proven track record of using whatever platform he’s given to promote vile extremist views. Baker creek giving him a platform to speak is either negligent, if they are claiming they never once googled his name, or an indicator of support for his views.
I lean towards the second interpretation. On the speaker agenda, he’s referred to as a “land rights activist”, indicating that that is a specific topic they knew he would discuss, and they didn’t just hear about him as a random watermelon farmer.
Looking at the speaker before him, too, they run a group that thinks you can just come down with a case of autism from eating GMOs and cure yourself with organic food, and they are also 5g conspiracy theorists. You don’t accidentally put those types of people together.
When called out about it, they basically defended their choice to invite him, even though they could have disavowed him.
Look up seed saver’s exchange. I usually just save my own seeds, it’s not very difficult for most plants. But that’s where I bought most of mine to get started.
Seconding seed savers exchange. Most (all?) of their seeds are open pollinated. For anyone who doesn’t know what this means, it basically means that you can save seeds to regrow the next year.
Many types of seeds that you can buy do not enable this because they aren’t true to seed, or in the case of some gmo plants, they might be infertile.
When a hybrid plant is made, the genes are basically unstable. Remembering back to learning punnet squares in biology class, the offspring (seeds) from a hybrid plant can have a different mix of genes from the parent plants. For example, your hybrid tomato bred from one parent that had disease resistance but bad tasting fruit and another parent that had good fruit but susceptible to disease would give you a mix of offspring that can be like either parent, the hybrid, or the worst of both parents. Sometimes, over time, you can pick only three “good” ones and make sure they are only pollinated by other “good” ones by bagging flowers and hand transferring pollen. With open pollinated plants, none of that is necessary.
https://xerces.org/milkweed/milkweed-seed-finder
Use the map to find a supplier near you that cares about sourcing local milkweed. If they have that priority, chances are they will get a lot of other stuff right too.
I found https://sowtrueseed.com/ through that utility and I’ve been happy with the seeds and tools I’ve gotten from them.
I found out our local library has a seed bank. So that’s something I will be looking into participating in when it reopens in the spring.
I’ve had a really great experience with Johnny’s Selected Seeds. I started ordering from them because I was doing an undergraduate research project, and they responded to my questions within a day with detailed answers and a couple pdfs. Great germination rates, and a good variety of seeds too. (also they ship to Canada!)
I have ordered as late as April. I just make sure to chuck my seeds in the fridge if I order during the winter
A little bit specialized/niche, but my favorite is Kitazawa Seed. For more Western varieties, I like Fedco. I tend to order in late winter.
FYI The original owners retired a few years ago and the brand is now owned by True Leaf market. I bought from them before the switch but not yet from the new site.
Random small Etsy people who seem legit have been good to me. Recycled packaging, directly supporting a very small business, etc. has been nice.
I’ve had good luck with Pinetree seeds. They have a nice selection and decent growing tips. I’ve been very pleased with everything I’ve purchased from them.
Bah, thanks for the suggestion, they don’t seem to ship to Canada though.
I do see they have a catalog to sign up for, so maybe I’ll peruse some websites and see which ones also do that.
I found a couple, but rather get word of mouth than rely on marketing.
