Looking for a Good Mail Order Place for Seeds

12 years ago

I'm wanting to order seeds for someone, and I'm hoping to find a good, reliable place that doesn't charge the earth on shipping and handling.

Actually, it will probably be at least two places, given the list of seeds I'm looking for, but I thought I'd check for recommendations.

(for the curious, I'm currently hunting:

Cupani's sweet peas

tomato cherry sweetie

tomato chocolate cherry

cucumber Marketmore select

beet chioggia

New Zealand spinach

radish Easter egg mix

cantaloupe Honey bun hybrid)

All nice, compact seeds for a patio garden, so if anyone has any other varieties to suggest, that, also is appreciated.

Much thanks!

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Comments (16)

pitcom
12 years ago
I will list for you the seed places that i have used that i have been very happy with.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
www.rareseeds.com
St. Clare Heirloom Seeds
http://www.stclareseeds.com
Botanical Interests
http://www.botanicalinterests.com
Sweet Corn Organic Nursery
http://www.sweetcornorganicnursery.com/store/
Trade Winds Fruit
http://www.tradewindsfruitstore.com/servlet/StoreFront

I had great germination from all of these companies. Shipping was priced very well from these shops as well.
I used to use seeds of change, but they have really gone down hill the past couple of years and have extremely ridiculous shipping rates.
digdirt2
12 years ago
parkseed.com carries most all of them.

Dave
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Not sure whether the seeds I buy would be considered pricey or not. I suppose I always view it as relative to the value of what's produced. What I pay for a packet of seed nearly always pales in comparison to what I'd have to pay for the vegetables themselves at the grocery store. I order most of my seeds from www.stokeseeds.com and www.veseys.com, some from a local garden shop in the city (Early's Farm and Garden) and occasionally oddball packets from box store and local hardware store racks. The germination rates of the box/hardware rack seeds rarely ever meet that of the seeds from Veseys and Stokes, though. The local garden shop gets their seed in bulk from various reputable sources and they repackage in their own envelopes for sale; their germination rates are great, too, but they simply don't offer the variety of the online sources.
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Mary, It sure sounds like you had a wandering passionvine that wandered right out of its bed. Being that I'm so far north (PA), I don't know if they could even get a chance to wander from one place to another. I'd be lucky to just get them to live outside at all over the winter. I think if I want them, I'll have to dug a few up every fall and bring them inside and then take them back outside the following spring. Btw, I don't blame you for not wanting to try that passionvine again for fear that it might have contaminants on for the cats. If you decide to raise any paw paws, if I were you I'd either start them from seed like I did or buy them as potted plants, but after my experiences of getting bareroot paw paw trees in the mail without them living either time, I would NOT buy a bareroot paw paw. I suspected that I got junk both times, and I was probably right. I mentioned those times to someone who I trust to know about these things and here's what he said: "You are right in what you said about online folks not caring sometimes. But it gets worse. What you probably bought in those big pawpaw trees is just a sucker from the roots that was yanked out of the ground with little care. Pawpaws sucker pretty freely and some people think that selling the stem with little roots is the same as selling a tree. It is not." So, I really would recommend getting a potted paw paw tree and NOT a bareroot one. When I received the paw paw trees in the mail, they didn't even look like they had a root, but I thought maybe that's the way they're supposed to look. I think it's just like that person told me and that they were just yanked out and were suckers off of other trees, not an individual tree. Besides, I have since seen online a pic of a person using a backhoe to dig up a small paw paw tree that was only a few feet high. It was a shock to see just how far a person would have to dig to get all of the root out of the ground. Yes, for fruit you have to have two trees for pollination if you want to get fruit from the trees, which I do. My original reason for wanting the trees was just for the Zebra Swallowtails, but the more I read about paw paws, I thought that they sure do sound good! Anyway, there's my paw paw advice FWIW, and I'm not sure if one tree would bring in the butterflies or not. I plan on having at least half a dozen. That's great that you saw some butterflies. They won't be here for awhile yet. MissSherry, That's great that one of your Zebra Swallowtails emerged! I can hardly wait to see the pictures of it. If you try raising them again, I really hope that you don't have a lot of trouble with them like last year. Hopefully it was just a bad year for them or something and that won't be commonplace whenever you raise them. That's the way it goes with the GSTs with me. It's really frustrating that they drop dead right and left. They can be right on the rue and crawl right off acting like they don't even recognize it as a host plant. I even tried putting them back on, but they crawled off again. If they die, they almost always die when they're very small. I'm looking forward to the day (more like year) when my couple of wafer ash trees will be big enough to support a fair number of cats. I want to see if the plant improves their survival rate. I also started gas plants last year, and it will be interesting to see if the GSTs lay any eggs on them. I don't recall anyone on here saying that they raised any on gas plants. It's supposed to be in the 70's and low 80's here for about 5 days starting on Thursday. Yay!!! Cathy
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jolj
12 years ago
Territorial seed co. 1-800-626-0866.
Pinetree garden seeds/ www.superseeds.com
Peaceful valley/ www.GrowOrganic.com
Kitazawa seed Co. seeds@kitazawaseed.com
Seed saver www.seedsavers.org
vermont bean seed Co. www.vermontbean.com
This is a few of the ones I use.
erin_nc
12 years ago
Burpee will charge you an arm and a leg!! They are severely over priced for shipping.

Yes, I've provided feedback and have moved on to other companies. My favorite is Seedsavers. Awesome customer service and better shipping prices. Seedsavers seeds seem to germinate really well too.

If ever you are looking for onions, Dixondale Farms are awesome. Their product is wonderful too.

Good luck!

Erin
nygardener
12 years ago
Add Johnny's, Seeds from Italy, and Shumway's. For herbs, Richters.
2ajsmama
12 years ago
Fedco carries all non-treated seeds, mostly OP, very reasonable and good germination rates (except for the Thai peppers I tried this year, but I think the greenhouse might have been too cool for peppers since most of mine were small. The Hinkelhatz did extremely well, but all the other peppers are small.).
biscgolf
12 years ago
johnny's is great.
lavender_lass
12 years ago
I find most of my seeds locally, but John Scheeper's Seeds have been wonderful for more unusual varieties. The Emerite and Purple Pole climbing beans are beautiful together (lavender and purple flowers...with green and purple beans). Check out the website...there are so many possibilities and the S&H seems fair to me. Hope this helps :)

The link is to the vegetable/fruit page, but on the left, you can see they also have herbs, flowers, and seed collections (butterfly/bird gardens, etc.) Enjoy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Scheeper's
knufflebunnyfarmer
12 years ago
I second or third or whichever Johnny's Selected Seeds (aka Johnny's). You can usually find a coupon for free shipping or other discount online if you google it.
They are not the cheapest, but they are reasonable and most importantly RELIABLE. I have ordered 3 separate times from them this year and have had everything I ordered within a week (I'm in TN). Every seed I planted from them had good germination rates and seem to be healthy and disease free. I don't know if they carry what you are looking for, but if they do, I would highly recommend them.

I made the mistake of ordering a few things from Gurney's this year and I am still waiting for items I ordered April 4th. After 3 phone calls, and 3 different ship dates, they finally told me that they didn't know when they shipped, but if I didn't have them next week to call for a refund because they are now sold out.
Jprice1021
12 years ago
No love for Burpee's here? While they can be a little high on shipping, they seem to carry anything I ever need or cant find in Home Depot/Walmart.
madmantrapper
12 years ago
I find Meyer Seed Co. in Baltimore, MD to be reasonable. They have a web site where you can do everything on line.
gardenvt
12 years ago
I'm a Johnny's fan but do buy locally when possible as one of our garden supply companies carries seed from a huge number of seed companies.

Pinetree Garden Seeds has nice sized packages at a fraction of the cost for most companies and the shipping rate is really good.
nygardener
12 years ago
Cook's Garden is another good source. They have some hard-to-find culinary varieties.
bookwyrme
Original Author
12 years ago
Wow! Lots to choose from! Thanks!

I'm going to try a couple local stores, for sure, but with all the different specific varieties, I'm not likely to find it all, and the places I had checked online pretty much doubled the cost when shipping was added.

These look much better--though from the few I've checked, I may make up the shipping savings in "Oh, I have to try that!"
wertach zone 7-B SC
12 years ago
I buy a lot from: http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/seed/heirloom.htm
susancol
12 years ago
Ooh, I didn't know Clemson sold seeds. Cool.
Susan

Looking for a Good Mail Order Place for Seeds

Comments (16)

pitcom

digdirt2

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bookwyrme
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wertach zone 7-B SC

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