Want to share my excitement about heirlooms and seed purchase!

10 years ago

This is my first year gardening at home and it has been wonderful. It's a joy to have my 3 year old daughter out in the yard with me tending the veggies, teaching her about nature and all of the fun things gardening has to offer!

I purchased Sapling tomato plants at the beginning of the season, about 5 varieties two of them being heirlooms. Old German and Mr.Stripey. Almost immediately it was apparent that these were different from the Jet star, Better Boy and Parks Improved that I had. The vines grew more irregularly and did not have the explosion in meditative growth the others displayed. Then the others flowered and set fruit a good 3 weeks earlier then the heirlooms also. I was happy to have the earlier fruit but the taste of the Old German and Mr.Stripey were so much more satisfiying (not that the others were bad at all, still much much better than grocery tomatoes).

This led me to search the web for a good source of heirloom seeds for next year. I found a site called amishlandseeds.com. (I haven't received any seeds as I just ordered them a couple days ago, so this is not a review or anything like that). The variety of seeds she offered blew me away and honestly it was hard to keep my order from being far too many for my gardening area! I'm sure I got too many anyway! :)

Here are the varieties I purchased. Any comments are very welcome, even if I made bad decisions,

PLATE DE HAITI TOMATO Seeds
Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato seeds
WOLFORD WONDER Oxheart Tomato Seeds
BEAR CLAW TOMATO seeds
ROYAL HILLBILLY seeds
GLICK'S BRANDYWINE TOMATO seeds
Zapotec Tomato seeds
CHOCOLATE STRIPES TOMATO seeds
Eva's Amish Stripe Tomato seeds
PAUL ROBESON TOMATO Seeds
LISTADA DE GANDIA EGGPLANT seeds
VERNISSAGE PINK TOMATO Seeds

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Comments (5)

girlbug2
10 years ago
It's so awesome to find another "convert" to heirloom gardening! You sure have a large list of seeds there. Will you have space to plant each variety? Good for you!

I have personally grown pink and yellow Brandywines in the past, and also Hillbilly -- I don't know if Royal Hillbilly is something else entirely or the same. But there is no such thing as a bad Brandywine as far as I'm concerned, and the Hillbilly I grew was very good. Enjoy.
sheltieche
10 years ago
Paul Robeson is fantabulous tomato Russian origins one of my favs . I have grown Black vernissage -seed from Baker Creek- and found them to be thick skinned and fairly tart so all in all was not impressive for me... Bear Claw not sure which one you getting, there is one Russian origin as well as Ben Quisenberry strain, I grew Russian one which is very nice and productive for me.
Tatiana tomatobase website has lots of information on many many varieties OP and heirlooms where you can read up more on varieties of your choices
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fusion_power
10 years ago
Amishland seeds tends to be one of the more unreliable seed sources. If you want some better quality seed suppliers, may I suggest: Sandhill Preservation, Southern Exposure, Baker Creek, and High Mowing.

seed supplier links

Folks, the story above has a bit too much saccharine. I'd like OP to come back and add some more personal detail. Amishland is NOT the first seed site you would stumble on if you search for heirloom tomato seed and it is a long shot from the top choice for good tomato seed.
spartan-apple
10 years ago
Greetings:

I tried Sandhill PReservation this past spring. WOW was I
impressed. The seed was very reasonable, the selection was great and I got a lot of seed for the money. I did not know how many carrot seeds would be in a packet so I ordered 2 packets. After planting one packet, I ended up saving the other for next spring since the seed quantity in each was very generous!

The carrots and squash I got all grew very well. I am very pleased with Sandhill Preservation.
Brandon Smith
Original Author
10 years ago
What about them makes you say they are unreliable?

After my order was placed it took a few days to get an email from the woman who operates the business and when she did I was informed that one of the varieties I ordered was out of stock, no big deal as I was refunded that amount. It took maybe a week and a half to two weeks for my order to arrive. When it did arrive there was a packet of freebies and that made me happy.

There may have been a slight lapse from when I ordered till I got confirmation of my order, perhaps the shipping took a little longer than expected but from what I gather Amishland seeds is pretty much ran by this one lady and a few of her friends/farm enthusiast/farmers when they have the time to lend a helping hand.

Now if your talking about seed germination rates or something like that then I will not be able to comment till spring time.

Want to share my excitement about heirlooms and seed purchase!

Comments (5)

girlbug2

sheltieche

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Want to share my excitement about heirlooms and seed purchase!

Comments (5)

girlbug2

sheltieche

Related Discussions

fusion_power

spartan-apple

Brandon SmithOriginal Author

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US

Brandon Smith
Original Author