Knapps Fresh Vegies Seeds

[Wi-sunflower]

I found Tomatoville thru a link on a post at the SSE board. When I joined I read the TV rules and decided to be able to not break the rules about "selling" or commercial promotion, I would try to remain incognito here.

This post is my coming-out. This is partly due to the fact that several members have posted about my site and at least 1 has purchased from me since I've been here and wanted to post about their experience.

I am the owner / grower of 2 web sites that sell tomato seeds, knapps-fresh-vegies
carols tomatoes

We are a husband and wife vegie farm that is mainly a market grower that also happens to save a lot of seeds when possible. My seed business is just me. It developed partly because I had problems finding heirloom and rare variety seed in more than just small packs. As a market grower I often needed larger quantities. So I started saving my own.

I try to give good service, but occasionally during the summer, farm stuff keeps me busy and I don't always have the energy to do seed orders after a long day out in the fields. During the winter tho, I go to the post office 3 or more times each week.

The last few years I've been expanding my tomato selections and offer many seeds I grow myself. This last year I saved about 10 lbs of tomato seed in about 100 varieties.

In the future I hope to have a lot more of the great heirloom varieties I've found here at TV. I hope you members feel I'm another way some rare varieties will have the chance to be more widely available to the general public.

I hope you won't think I took advantage of anyone here or got seeds by deception. I hope members I've traded with feel I gave a good trade as I've gotten some wonderful varieties here.

One reason I didn't post about my sites before is that most of the descriptions and pics on my sites are not original to me. Most are just the descriptions from the sites/catalogs where I first bought my seeds. Personally I'm not very good at writing descriptions, especially those flowery ones. I have edited out some of the excessive stuff tho as I don't think it does the varieties any good to be over the top.

While most of the pics I have are taken from other web sites, the same pics are on almost every commercial web site out there. I do have a nice digital camera now, so I plan to get my own pics this coming summer. Please give me a chance to get things updated.If too many feel it's wrong for now, I'll just take those pages off til I can get them updated next year.

If anyone has constructive suggestions for my site I will be happy to listen and consider anything. My Knapps site is self made and sometimes doesn't always work the way it should as I'm not the best with HTML. It sometimes doesn't get updated as much as it should. I do have some "helpful hints" pages under the "greenhouse" and "tips" links.

I hope members here will think I've been a useful addition to TV with some of the posts I've made, especially in the new Growing for Market forum.

Thank you,
Carol Knapp

[Nightshade]

Thanks for speaking up, Carol. I've been stifling myself, waiting for you to come out of the closet, so I could share my experience of doing business with you.

Just when i thought i had my grow list set for the year, i found a vendor (Carol, a fellow Tomatovillian, though i didn't know it at the time) selling twenty mini packs for $20 (and VERY reasonable shipping charges!). When i looked at her list, I felt like i had opened a tomato treasure chest!

She carries grow-outs from old hybrids, like Italian Gold and Orange Pixie that come true to seed. She ls one of the few people to offer Chello, aka Czechs Excellent Yellow, and she carries a pink Tumbler that she has segregated from the original red. My garden plans got a lot more colorful after I visited her site!

We emailed back and forth before I placed my order. it came very quickly and even though I thought her twenty-min deal was a fantastic bargain, and probably not very profitable for her, she still included some great bonus seeds.

Thank you, Carol. i know everyone who does business with you will be as pleased as i am.

Jan

[kygreg]

Carol,

When I trade or give seeds, I feel whoever receives them has to right to grow them, trade them, give them away and even sell them if they want;

You and I have traded seeds and I am happy if you can spread the heirloom message and if you can do it and make a little profit on it, thats even better.

I have a couple of people in the past who request that seeds they sent me not be traded, and I honor that.

Glad to know you have a small business and hope its successful for you.

Gary

[Wi-sunflower]

Thank you much both Jan and Gary.

I want to mention that NONE of the seeds I traded for will be sold or traded away this year. I hope to GROW all of those new to me varieties. If I have a decent growing season, hopefully I will have lots of those varieties available for sale for the 2010 season.

Carol

[newatthiskat]

I have enjoyed reading your posts. I figured from the amount of seeds you were talking about saving that you were possibly a seed seller. I have not been able to trade much due to this is only going to be my second season growing heirlooms. I would not have any trouble trading with someone that was going to grow out and sell. I pretty much figure that once they leave my hands they are someone elses property
Kat

[Wi-sunflower]

Just an update about my seed saving for this year.

I see others have updated their catalogs for 2010 already. Personally my web site probably won't be updated til around Thanksgiving if then. But I'll post about the new varieties I have as I get them drying.

I am collecting and processing seeds tho. That's about a month early for me. I have 20some plates drying so far.

New for me --

Neves Azorian Red
Lithuanian
Roughwood Golden Plum
Cuostralee
Vjera's
White Queen
Roza Vetrov
Sherrill
Siletz

I think that's it for now. I do still have at least 20 buckets in the barn to process and about 200 more to get picked.

Things have been horribly slow to ripen here this year. I did take pics of some of the new varieties but the color on many are really off as many are showing signs of sunscald. Most of the purple/blacks look more like yellow-brown.

If anyone needs seed of a new-to-me variety before I get my web site updated, just give me an email and I'll get you the seeds.

Carol

[Tania]

Carol,

Thank you for coming forward, although I knew you were a seed vendor, I did not know which business was yours

If you need more exposure (as far as tomatoes go), I will be happy to add you as a business to TOMATObase (it is free) - as I do for all other tomato seed vendors (see Seed Availability section in tomato pages). PM or email me, if interested.

It is so good that many tomato varieties are becoming available through various small privately owned seed vendors who produce their own seeds!

Tania

[cottonpicker]

Wi-sunflower...... Wishing you GREAT luck with your endeavor!!!!! And, I think it IS WONDERFUL to see the cooperation between open-minded vendors on this web-site. How nice.. WE are ALL WINNERS when such harmony exists.
Ldd

[Wi-sunflower]

Thanks everyone. TV has been such a great resource. I'm so glad I found it last winter.

I was reminded that my carols tomato site on Bonanzle is currently empty.

About 6 weeks ago I put all the listings there "on hold". Basically I've been just way too busy with the farm to fill seed orders right now. I now understand why Sandhill doesn't accept orders during harvest time.

I'll let everyone know when I put the items at Bonanzle back for sale.

My own web site is still up, tho if you really need something quick, please let me know so I don't let an order sit too long.

Tania, thanks for the offer. I've been on your site many times since I found out about it here at TV. Very nice. While I would like a listing there, I would like to wait a bit till I have more of the seeds at least in the barn.

Carol

[Wi-sunflower]

I got my Bonanzle site back up last week. http://www.bonanzle.com/booths/carolstomatoes

I don't have the new varieties in it yet tho, or on my web site.

But since everyone is excited about catalogs, I've attached a file with what I expect to have on my web site soon. I still have about 20 of the new-to-me varieties to get processed.

I realized too that my prices on bulk seeds are a bit high, especially on the not so rare varieties, so I intend to adjust the prices as soon as I have a chance to update my web site. If you are interested in anything in the meantime, give me a PM or email and I'll give you a better price than I currently have listed on the bulk seeds.

I hope you will find some interesting varieties you may have been looking for.

Thanks,
Carol Knapp
knapps-fresh-vegies.com

[celestina]

Terrific site! Thanks for posting the update (:

[Wi-sunflower]

I've spent the last couple of days working on the "new varieties" page. It was too cold to work out in the barn, so computer work that is long overdue was done. There is still a lot of work needed, but I at least have the buy buttons up.

Only the new for 2010 page has been updated so far but I'll be working on the rest when ever I can't work out in the barn. http://knapps-fresh-vegies.netfirms....toes-2010.html

My site is good for members that know what they want, but I don't have pics or descriptions up yet at all. Just variety names. But I do have quite a few of the popular varieties like NAR and Stump listed.

Because the members of Tomatoville have been so generous with providing me new varieties, I've made up a discount coupon for any one to use at my site as a thank-you.

Enter "tomatoville" (just the word without the quotes) in the cart for free shipping on an order of $10 or more. That's at least $2.00 off. It can also be used more than once / person.

So far I've processed over 11 lbs of seeds but still have quite a bit to do.

Most of my seed is new or from last year. Very little that I have listed on my web site is more than 2 years old. I generally use up the older seed myself or use some of that for the sample packs if it still germinates well.

Thanks for looking,
Carol

[Wi-sunflower]

Hi gang,

Just a note about my site.

At the moment my checkout is ONLY fully set up for using credit cards thru Google Checkout. I can also take an order thru PayPal but I can't do that with the same cart as the Google cart. Google and PayPal don't play well together.

So if you want to order something and pay with PayPal or a check or money order, just email me the order and I will send you a PayPal invoice or the mailing info.

I don't like to keep the mailing info out in the open mainly so I don't get more spam than I already do. I also like to know if something is coming so I can watch for it as my mail service here is rather spotty and we've missed things at times.

Also if you would like a mini pack of varieties on my older pages, you will need to email me as I haven't updated those pages for the minis yet.

I want to thank those that have already taken advantage of my special offer here. I hope to get the orders out today or tomorrow.

Right now I'm fighting with an old printer trying to get some readable labels for my new varieties. My printing is barely legible so the printer will hopefully be better.

Way too many things to do right now.

Thanks much,
Carol

[geeboss]

Order placed and system working fine. Looking forward to receiving seeds in time for Xmas Presents to friends.

George

[Wi-sunflower]

I was able to get out several orders yesterday including yours, George.

But I may not be able to do much today as we have our LAST market of the year tomorrow and we need to try to pick a few things today.

Mainly 1 of the orders still here is for 2 - 20 mini deals (40 packs). That takes me quite a while to pack. I don't have seeds pre-packed as what sells varies too much season to season. That order will take me a couple of hours alone.

Hopefully all orders AND trades will go out by early next week if nothing else comes up again.

Thanks,
Carol