'Travels, I've only grown the Thessaloniki. Without Dave's input, I wouldn't have known or thought about Domata -- and now I see that Santorini & Domata are both 75 day varieties. That is within my climate's possibilities! Thessaloniki is a favorite of some experienced growers. I'm mostly pleased that I have a nice heirloom slicer for my garden. It ripens a little later than Big Beef & Goliath so it comes in shortly before frost. It isn't quite as large as those 2 and probably only reaches 8 ounces on occasion in my garden. I began to grow Thessaloniki about 5 years ago and was immediately impressed with its freedom from cracking. That can be an important issue in my garden/climate. Flavor is mild but it has a rather surprising flavor undertone. To me, it tastes like I've already sprinkled it with fresh parsley! I don't think that it would cook down well. Thessa is really to be enjoyed fresh and, maybe, by folks who don't want a tomato with a pronounced flavor. DW likes it, she goes for mild varieties. I like 'em all! digitS'

Fun posts! I buy plenty of common stuff from local nurseries and big box stores, and I do a lot of seed/plant swapping too. For catalog/online places I like Burpee, Park Seed, Select Seeds, Baker Creek (fantastic beautiful catalog), Thompson and Morgan, and JL Hudson. I buy most plants locally but also do a lot of plant trades, plus purchases from High Country Gardens, Select Seeds (they do plants too), Annie's Annuals, and my favorite Plant Delights. Oh, and ebay.com too for plants and seeds. Happy sowing and growing everyone, Grant

Here I go, raving about this woman's site again. I can't help it: when I find someone who sells a LOT of high-germination rare seeds for VERY little (and is a good person and great resource), I just want to broadcast. I guess that makes me a gardener. Anyway, Diane's site has little Glassine envelopes at $1 for 20. I'll post the link down below. I usually spend $5 for a hundred, and that lasts forever. I use them for the teeny seeds, and just plain coin-envelopes (a couple of sizes) for the larger ones. She's in the USA, which is a bit of a pain in that you have to wait a week or so. Hope this helps. Here is a link that might be useful: glassine seed envelopes

Carmen, OK, all the ones I listed above have open-pollinated and heirloom vegetable varieties. Most have heirloom herbs. Like Carol, I order often from Willhite Seed 2 or 3 times a year, and for several reason. First, I grew up in Texas using their seeds, so I know their quality is good. Secondly, you get a lot of seeds in a packet. In some cases, a ridiculous amount, particularly with open-pollinated varieties. Third, they ship quickly. I have ordered online on a Friday or Saturday and had my seeds arrive in my morning mail on Monday or Tuesday. That is hard to beat, although, sometimes Southern Exposure is almost as fast and so is Victory Seeds. Fourth, and this is one of the most important things, is that Willhite focuses on varieties that do well in this region. They don't carry seeds that won't grow well in Texas and the surrounding states because that's who their customer is. If they carry a variety, you know it is time-tested and performs well here. Fifth, they specialize in breeding watermelon and muskmelons, which we in this country call cantaloupes. (True cantaloupes, as the rest of the world knows them, are not muskmelons.) Because they breed their melons for this part of the country, they grow and produce well in our soils and temperatures. Finally, for decades their primary focus has been farmers and market growers (though they happily sell to home gardeners too), so their varieties are those which produce a really good yield. Farmers and market growers need varieties that produce high yields so they can, hopefully, make a profit. I love Pinetree Garden Seeds (www.superseeds.com)and order from them about every other year. They sell smaller quantities so I like to use them for veggies that I grow in smaller quantities. You now, you don't need a packet of 300 broccoli seeds if you only grow 6 or 8 or 10 broccoli plants a season, so Pinetree is perfect for anything you want in a smaller quantity. Most of my heirloom veggie seeds (except for tomatoes, and more about that in a minute) come from Willhite, Baker Creek, Southern Exposure (so many varieties of heirloom southern peas like black-eyed peas, purple hull pinkeye peas, lady peas, etc. that your head will spin, and lots of heirloom lima beans and snap beans as well as heirloom everything else), Victory Seeds and, in the past from Seed Savers Exchange, though in really recent years I haven't purchased as much from them. Sandhill Preservation Center is a great source for some of the rarest heirloom seeds available from a commercial seed-seller, but keep in mind that it is a very small mom-and-pop business and the owner has a regular job, so you do not get instant shipping, for example, from this company. Read and follow all the directions on their website or your order may not get processed quickly. Marianna's Seeds (www.mariseeds.com) has some heirloom tomato varieties you won't find anywhere else. This summer I dehydrated wine-marinated tomatoes for the first time after dehydrating regular tomatoes for years. We enjoy these so much that I am going to buy a lot of different varieties of paste tomato seeds from Marianna's Seeds this fall to grow in 2013 for wine-marinated tomatoes. The reason I am choosing these varieties is they were recommended by the same woman who posted her method of making sun-dried tomatoes that I used this year, and I want to try some of the tomatoes she said did well for her. Occasionally I order from Burpee Seeds, but only to get a few exclusive Burpee varieties that are not available any place else. Otherwise, they have priced themselves right out of my budget. I also buy seeds from Park Seed occasionally. I usually get County Fair cucumber from them because it is the only cucumber variety I've ever grown that has a very strong tolerance of bacterial wilt. Since I'm ordering it from them, I'll order a few more things from them to make the shipping worthwhile. Also, Park has teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and has been under new ownership for a couple of years ago. Because Park Seed was a great seed supplier years ago, I am rooting for the new ownership to turn things around and one way to root for them is to spend money for their products. Another great source for heirloom tomatoes is Tomatofest. They have a staggering number of heirloom tomato varieties---roughly 600 of them, and I usually try at least 2 or 3 of their varieties every year. This year I grew Greek Rose which gave us huge pink tomatoes with incredible flavor and a very heavy yield. It is one we will grow for many years to come. Rene's Garden Seeds is a huge favorite for several reasons, not the least of which are her packets with 3 varieties per packet. I always grow sweet bell peppers (the packet I get has a golden bell, an orange bell and a red bell variety), refrigerator watermelons (a yellow-fleshed, orange-fleshed and red-fleshed one from one combination packet) and some tomatoes (from single variety packets) and flowers from Renee's. One thing I especially like about Renee's is that when there are multiple varieties in a packet, each one is dyed with a specific food dye so that you can pick out and plant a specific number of seeds of each variety. Most companies that put multiple varieties in a single packet do not dye the seeds so you can get random results if you don't plant the entire packet. My all-time favorite tomato seed supplier is Gleckler's. This is a company with a rich heritage dating back over 100 years. However, it had ceased operating for a while. When some family members revived the company several years ago, they were given seeds of many heirloom varieties by seed savers who had long maintained those seed lines. When I ordered varieties from them, I found I was getting "the real deal". In some cases, and I will use Cherokee Purple as an example, I had grown the variety from other seed sources for years and, while it was a great tomato, I always felt like it wasn't as wonderful as it was supposed to be. After I grew that same variety from Glecker's, I feel like the seed commonly available today isn't even the "real" Cherokee Purple. So, increasingly, most of my favorite tomato varieties are the versions sold by Gleckler's. I believe their seed is untainted by cross-pollination that may have occurred with some commercially-available varieties, and that their seeds give me the tomatoes most like the original description of the heirlooms. From now on, if a specific variety is available both from Glecker's and from someone else, I'll only buy it from Gleckler's. The tomato varieties I grew from Gleckler's this year gave me huge tomatoes, huge yields and pretty healthy, disease-tolerant plants. I have several "new" (to me) favorite heirloom tomatoes from Gleckler's that are turning my traditional tomato grow list on its ear and bringing about all kinds of changes on that list. I also like seeds from High Mowing Seeds, and often buy from Totally Tomatoes and Tomato Growers Supply Company. Finally, Botanical Interests has wonderful seeds and the most gorgeous and highly informational seed packets you'll ever find. I have grown their seeds since before we moved here, so I am guessing for about 20 years. Their catalog is a work of art specifically because of its watercolor-painting type artwork. Baker Creek's catalog is a work of art because of its photographs. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange's catalog also is a thing of beauty and a very helpful growing guide as well. The talk of catalogs reminds me of another favorite, Nichols Garden Nursery, because they no longer have a catalog, only a website, and I can spend hours browsing their website. I get several favorite varieties from them, including Spring Blush sugar snap peas, which look like a regular sugar snap pea but with a pinkish transparent-looking overlay of color on top of the standard green, and Opal Creek Yellow, which produces yellow podded edible peas. Territorial Seed Company has a wonderful selection, and offers some varieties I've never seen any place else. Another long time favorite of mine is Seeds From Italy (www.growitalian.com) which mostly sells seeds from the Italian seed company, Franchi-Sementi Seeds. It is under new ownership this year and they are adding more varieties. I grow many bean varieties from this company, and a few of their tomatoes and other veggies. Hope this is enough to get you busy exploring seed companies and their offerings. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Nichols Garden Nursery