New - Looking for Seed Seller w/ good rep

[coxclan5]

I'm new here Been gardening for some time. I'm also a freelance writer and often write about being off the grid, gardening, canning, and other things like that.

I stumbled on this forum as I was planning my seed purchases for 2012. My question is this -

With "heirloom" being so hot now, how do you find a dealer of seeds you can trust? Personally I feel like half the "heirloom" stuff really isn't and it's gotten quite commercialized.

I have seed catalogs pouring in, and I'd love to hear what companies you TRUST and buy from! Thanks!

Lindsey in NC
(who is trying to set up her signature)

[Fusion_power]

Look at this link http://www.selectedplants.com/seedsupplies.htm

Sandhill Preservation
Baker Creek
Fedco
High Mowing
Tatiana's

There are plenty of other good companies.

DarJones

[MikeInOhio]

Lindsey,

I would like to invite you to try my seeds. Of the 25 varieties of tomatoes that I sell, 23 are legitimately heirloom varieties. I unconditionally warranty all of my seeds, provide free support, and offer another 125 varieties of vegetable seeds. You can check my feedback out on davesgarden or ebay:

http://stores.ebay.com/Ohio-Heirloom-Seeds

And I obviously value your business.

Regards,
Mike

[amideutch]

Welcome to the Ville from across the pond. Look no further than the link below. Ami

http://www.tomatoville.com/showthread.php?t=3

[sirtanon]

From personal experience, I'll recommend:

Tatiana's at - http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/w...y:Tomato_Seeds
Johnny's Seeds at - http://www.johnnyseeds.com/default.aspx
Tomatofest at - http://www.tomatofest.com/
Totally Tomatoes at - http://www.totallytomato.com/

There are so many other great places out there, but I recommend the ones above because I've ordered heirloom seeds from them all and had good experiences with all.. most recently Tatiana's and Johnny's Seeds.

There are tons of great ones out there though.. just keep watching this thread and read the one that Ami linked.

Good luck!

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by coxclan5

I'm new here Been gardening for some time. I'm also a freelance writer and often write about being off the grid, gardening, canning, and other things like that.

I stumbled on this forum as I was planning my seed purchases for 2012. My question is this -

With "heirloom" being so hot now, how do you find a dealer of seeds you can trust? Personally I feel like half the "heirloom" stuff really isn't and it's gotten quite commercialized.

I have seed catalogs pouring in, and I'd love to hear what companies you TRUST and buy from! Thanks!

Lindsey in NC
(who is trying to set up her signature)

Lindsey, heirloom varieties have been very popular for many years now, starting back in the early 90's and the trend has continued upwards, and let's not get into a discussion of what constitutes an heirloom variety in this thread b'c there already are many threads about that here at Tville.

There are about 6 to 8,000 of them available commercially and I would not say that half of them aren't heirlooms.

If you go to Tatiana's site, ami just linked to the seed sources which is a Forum here, and click on her site I think you'll see what I mean as to numbers of varieties. She features pages for over 3,000 varieties and she herself sells seeds for about 600 varieties. Sandhill Preservation sells seeds for about400 varieties.

THe number of varieties listed for sale at a site is just a number, NOT a way to ID a good site, I just wanted to share with you a bit about numbers of varieties at a couple of seed sites.

First, trueness of seeds is I think just one of the criteria you should use, b'c service is also very important as is seed cost and for the latter I think seed prices are much higher than they should be at some sites. And since all heirlooms are OP ( open pollinated) that also means that there's a wide range in seed trueness depending on what a specific company does to acquire seed.

Some companies do all their own seed production or most of it, some subcontract out for seed production, some buy from wholsalers off the shelf and some use a combo of those methods to acquire seeds.

I highly suggest buying your tomato seed from more than one place and supporting the many small family run companies who have done so much to help preserve varieties by making them available to the public.

I too could make a list of companies that I think have good service and usually send out true seeds, but NO company dealing with OP seeds is perfect.

Years ago I use to do a Wrong Varieties thread at a different message site and there were certain companies that were much better than others, but in the meantime I haven't done that and new seed companies dealing with primarily heirloom tomato varieties are appearing all the time as you can also see by looking at the Seed and Plant Source Forum.

There are threads in the Seed and plant resource Forum for MANY companies and It might be valuable for you to take some time and read the comments about those companies. I don't know ONE person who orders seed from just ONE place.

Lastly, if you live in the Raleigh area Craig LeHoullier who is a Global Mod here sells plants for many varieties at the Raleigh Farmer's Market in the Spring which could be a backup for you if you have trouble growing from seed, but there's also a good Starting From Seed Forum here that you might want to look at. If you live in W NC I do NOT suggest you ask my dear brother anything about heirloom tomatoes, he lives just north of Asheville.

Are there any particular kinds of heirloom varieties you're looking for?

Hope the above has helped.

[coxclan5]

Thanks so much - should have been a bit more clear. I'm familiar with heirlooms, OP, and I wasn't clear about things being "trendy." I guess because I work in the industry I see some things behind closed doors, such as companies selling their heirloom seeds to other companies to re-label and resell at a slightly higher price. Which is fine. I just want to buy from the "small guys and gals" where I know I'm getting as true of a seed as possible. I want to buy from someone that's in it for the love of the seed, not the commercialization. Thanks for the link to the previous threads discussing this. Will check it out.

Lindsey

[coxclan5]

Carolyn, I'm not far from either place. I'm in central NC. Been meaning to make a trip to the Raleigh market sometime anyway. I usually frequent the downtown markets in Greensboro, NC but you're right, it's not easy finding heirloom seedlings. I do usually start my own plants and have had fair success doing so.

I've grown a few heirlooms - I think it's a crime to live in NC and not grow Cherokee Purple so I always grow those. I've grown Mortgage Lifters & Green Zebras in the past. This year I'm looking to try some different things. I'm partial to the black tomatoes. I also want to try a new green tomato this year. I also like to have a good supply of cherry tomatoes for the kids (they love to grow those themselves and harvest, eat them well, etc. It's a bit of a novelty for them).

Lindsey

[Tania]

Hi Lindsey,

Welcome to the forum! It is always great to see new members and tomato lovers joining. There are very knowledgeable and friendly folks here, and of course Carolyn, the Great Tomato Lady, is here and she is always ready to share her extensive knowledge with all of us.

I did my best to compile a list of heirloom tomatoes - you can view it here: http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/C...rloom_Tomatoes . If you open each individual page, I also list the seed vendors who carry the particular variety, so hopefully this would be useful.

Please post often!

Tatiana

[coloken]

There are a lot of good places. But as kind of a side line to this I don't believe many of them when it comes to description. Such a shame that they just re-copy from some one else. Good example is Russian red which did not come from Russia. I now conside Tatiana's as the bible for descriptions. She really works at trying to get it right.

[ContainerTed]

Hi, Lindsey. Welcome to the best site on the Web.

One of the members here is Craig Lehoullier (aka NCTOMATOMAN). He had a great deal to do with introducing Cherokee Purple to the world. I'm hoping he will chime in on this thread. He's in the Raleigh area and will have lots of tomato plants for sale at a market there come springtime.

One of the better tasting "green when ripe" tomatoes is Cherokee Green. (holy coincidence, batman). There are many others. Also, there are several threads here about good tasting cherry tomatoes.

Again, welcome. Post often and ask lots of questions.

The best of the holiday season to you and yours.

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by coloken

There are a lot of good places. But as kind of a side line to this I don't believe many of them when it comes to description. Such a shame that they just re-copy from some one else. Good example is Russian red which did not come from Russia. I now conside Tatiana's as the bible for descriptions. She really works at trying to get it right.

Most of the smaller sites I know of don't copy blurbs from others, some do, that's true.

So how does one explain all the different Japanese Trifeles that were bred in Russia? If someone in New Zealand got seeds from someone in Russia and didn't know that so called Russian Red was bred in NZ, what's someone going to do?

http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Russian_Red

Jeff McCormack, when he was still the owner of SESE, described German Red Strawberry having quintessential taste and that same word has been used at other sites to both desribe GRS and other varieties. I like that word.

Some sites owned by SSE members take adjectives/descriptions from folks who list a variety in the SSE YEarbook and run with it. Yes, I've seen my descriptions in print at several places.

But overall, for the better sites, my definition of better, ahem, I think for the most part that descriptions and accompanying blurbs are usually spot on. And when they aren't someone usually shares that with the site owners and most are glad to get the feedback, others aren't.

Those companies that do most of their own seed production, of which there are a few, have grown the varieties, tasted them, know them well, and so tend to present, I think, the best kind of info.

I know about wrong info at some sites b'c I used to try and help, or so I thought, by calling to the attention of some site owners that either the picture or blurb or both, were not correct. I stopped doing that several years ago.

Rather than be frustrated by some seed site owners I much prefer to avoid the frustration by trying once, but not again. What bothers me the most is when a site renames varieties, and it happens. Some sites want to say that what they have is exclusive, rare, and on and on and are most prone to variety name changing IMO.

[coxclan5]

I feel like I've found a very special place - almost a little slice of heaven - to find so many people who love tomatoes as much as I do! And here I had no idea this forum existed until last night...



Lindsey

[roper2008]

I always buy from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

[lakelady]

Hi Lindsey, welcome! This is a great, no, make that awesome place to learn all you want to learn from people who grow tomatoes, real stuff, not just the hype. As many different opinions as there are tomatoes!