Best online store to buy from? Indian Stripe, Sweet Pea Currant..

15 years ago

Hi All!

I'm overwhelmed and I'm trying to figure out the best place to buy my seeds from. It would be nice if the pricing is good, but the most important thing is quality of the seeds and selection(so I only have to buy from one place). Suggestions?

I have limited space, but here is my tentative growing list:

(comments welcome)

1 Cherokee Purple (my favorite)

1 Indian Stripe (similar to, but better than CP?)

1 San Marzano or some type of San Marzano variety

1 grape tomato

1 good flavorful red tomato (Probably trying Neves Azorean)

1 Sweet Pea Currant

1 Costoluto Genovese

2 more paste tomatoes (probably Opalka, Amish Paste)

1 oxheart (Maybe Anna's Russian?)

Thanks!!!

Stacy in VA/DC

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Comments (14)

geeboss
15 years ago
If your only seeking to produce 1 or 2 plants, I can help on the following with my spare seeds. I've got 3 of each as spares.

NAR
Cherokee Purple
Indian Stripe
Opalka
Oxheart Jeff's Mystery Pink Oxheart,
Giant Italian Pear
San Marzano
Grape Juliet, Black Cherry, Sun Gold, Sprite

I can get these out on Monday to you.

other wise check the following links for seed orders and remember that this is their busy time of year.

George

http://tatianastomatobase.com/wiki/Category:Tomato_Seeds
http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/tomato.html
http://rareseeds.com/seeds/Tomatoes-Red
azruss
15 years ago
Stacy, good luck on finding one online store that has all the varieties you want! I haven't been able to do it yet.

"geeboss" recommended some places that have good reputations, but I haven't purchased from them. I usually find that Tomato Growers and Victory Seeds have most of what I want. I also have had little problem with TomatoFest, but not everyone agrees with me.

I can send you a few (4 or 5) Costoluto Genovese seeds if you shoot me an email. I planted out my CG on January 1 and it's now 4' tall and gorgeous.

Russ in Marana, AZ (former Virginian)

www.tomatogrowers.com
www.victoryseeds.com
www.tomatofest.com
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Paneer is EASY - here is how to make it in the microwave. This is my preferred method nowadays. I use a 4 qt Pyrex bowl and do half a gallon at a time. Curdling it with yogurt only seems to work any more with home-made yogurt, which I haven't made in years. I can't seem to get good organic yogurt with the proper live cultures any more, so I've reverted to just using the white vinegar. http://barbariansatthekitchengate.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/paneer-revisited-another-reason-to-love-your-microwave/ Not only do I use a dabba, I use TWO! One is the traditional metal dabba with all metal cups inside; the other is a Lock&Lock version which is slightly larger. I put my whole seed spices in the metal one and my ground spices in the Lock & Lock version, on the premise that the inner plastic lid and the Lock & Lock seal provides a better - well, SEAL, and preserves the ground spices better. The flavor is far more subject to oxidation/degradation in the ground vs whole spices so I want to protect them better. I put little labels on each inner container because some spices look similar enough in the ground state that I want to be sure what they are. Also my son (rarely) cooks and he often can't tell a spice by sight or smell alone. It's better to have them marked. After many years of always buying my cumin and coriander both whole and ground, I no longer buy these spices pre-ground. It got to the place where I could not tell the difference between commercially ground cumin and commercially ground coriander at all. So I started roasting and grinding these from whole seed and there is now a night-and-day difference. The cumin is noticeably better, but the coriander is just a universe away from the pre-ground stuff. There are citrus notes in the roasted and fresh ground stuff that are (and have been for some time) totally lacking in the commercially ground version. Now I roast and grind my own whenever possible. Fennel, cumin, and other woody/oily seeds are best roasted and fresh ground. I don't bother with pepper or red chilis or turmeric, those I continue to buy pre-ground. The more volatile the flavor components, the more you will benefit from roasting and grinding it yourself. I use a cheap Krups coffee grinder (which has, of course, NEVER so much as seen a coffee bean). Here is a link that might be useful: How to make paneer in your microwave
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HoosierCheroKee
15 years ago
You'd better take up folks on any offers of seed since in VA/DC, you should have those seeds in starter cells this week. Any place you order from is gonna take at least 2 and maybe 3 or more weeks to deliver seed this time of year.
compost_pete-grower
15 years ago
Tomato growers has provided me with 250+ seed packs and all but one packet grew fine. I still have a 6 yr. old pack of brandywines that germinate 85%!!!
tomatoes4ever
Original Author
15 years ago
Eek!!! 2-3 weeks? I wasn't expecting that. Well, just so you know hoosiercherokee, I have already emailed the generous people who offered me seed. So I think I'll be ok this year.

Thanks to anyone that offers me seeds! It's a pleasant and unexpected surprise!
roper2008
15 years ago
Heirloom seeds has a good variety. What I
like about them is they send you smaller
pkts for a good price ,and the seed is good
quality also...check them out
clob
15 years ago
Is there really a "bad" seed company? I haven't heard of one. I tend to buy from different ones. This year, I think I ordered most from TGS and last year it was Totally Tomatoes. No offense to Totally Tomatoes but I'm one of those random buyers. I order some of my other seeds from Johnny's (or on occasion Park's or Burpee's). I think I decided upon TGS this year because they had a lot of great eggplant varieties I wanted along with the tomatoes I wanted so I could do most of it in one order.

For me, choosing between companies, is pretty random. However, I do really like receiving a catalog right before xmas. I usually have to take a long flight to go back home for the xmas holidays, and reading the seed catalogs are my #1 thing to do on an airplane. That's the time to relax and dog-ear the pages.
cleo88
15 years ago
Carolyn posted at one point that she likes Marianne's Seeds, and I ordered at the end of February and I think they came in less than a week.

Sand Hill seems to be one of the slowest - I think they don't have many hands on deck. But they have nice varieties.

Mostly, I think it depends on who has the varieties that you want - not every vendor has every variety of tomato.

Here is a link that might be useful: Marianne's Heirloom Seeds
tomatoes4ever
Original Author
15 years ago
I just want to say a big thank you to George, AKA Geeboss. He generously offered me 3 seeds each for a bunch of the varieties I was looking for. It turns out we only live 7 miles from each other! He said he was going to pop them in the mail today but to my surprise he actually delivered them to my door this afternoon! And we had a huge snow storm here last night. Do we give awards on this board for being awesome? If so I'd like to nominate him.

Also, a shout out to AZRUSS.... I really appreciate the Costoluto Genovese.

I still need a 2 more varieties (San Marzano Redorta, and Amish Paste)..... But thanks to George I have the majority of what I was looking for.

Thanks!

Stacy in VA/DC
tylenol
15 years ago
I agree, geeboss is a nice guy.

Here is a link that might be useful: George geting back
tomatoes4ever
Original Author
15 years ago
LOL!
geeboss
15 years ago
tomatoes4ever
The San Marzano included is San Marzano Select Redorte. And yes it did snow and my plants wanted to go back outside but you know youngsters just have to experience the snow so I took them outside and they promptly request that I take them back in and turn up the heat. You can only do what you can do to please the seedlings.

George
simmran1
15 years ago
tomatoesforever, Below is a link for Indian Stripe. I personally sow & grow Cherokee Purple every year, and although the yield is low, the ambrosia is high. The trade
off is worth it at harvest.

Here is a link that might be useful: Indian Stripe source
dr_tomato
14 years ago
I have ordered from TomatoTom.com and have never been disapointed.But than again I order a lot from a lot of different places.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato Tom

Best online store to buy from? Indian Stripe, Sweet Pea Currant..

Comments (14)

geeboss

azruss

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