one of the better producing bush beans (top crop) I have grown came from a Ferry Morse packet, I also have had good experience with a cucumber (homemade pickles) that was from them. I don't have any complaints about the company. Like Dave said though, you'll find better variety from the catalogs. As far as quality goes, I don't think you'll be disappointed with Ferry Morse.

Sheesh! DH is home from work today, we are both sitting here at the dining room table tapping away on our laptops. He saw me get out my wallet and said, "What are you buying?" Me (very sheepish): "Seeds...." Eye roll from the DH. Oy!

We don't know enough about the individual packets of seeds to answer that question. Some discount websites and seed companies sell seeds from the previous season. In and of itself, that is not necessarily a problem, assuming the seeds have been kept in proper storage conditions so the quality of the seeds has not significantly degraded. So, if you are buying less expensive seeds to plant in 2011 and those seeds were packed for 2011 or 2010, you likely would have similar germination rates for most varieties. However, if the seeds were packed for 2008 or 2009, your germination rates might drop. Seed viability differs from one type of vegetable or flower to another, though, so there's no cut-and-dried way to say "oh, anything less than 5 years old is going to germinate well". A blanket statement of that type might be true of tomatoes, for example, but not lettuce or onion seed. There also is a huge variation in the number of seeds in a packet. Some companies might put 40 tomato seeds in a packet. Some might put only 10. If you're buying from a company that doesn't tell you how many seeds are in a packet (either by weight or by seed count), you don't know what you're getting. Sometimes the cheaper pack is not always the better deal. Even with Burpee seeds, there is often a difference between the number of seeds in catalog packs versus the number of sees in retail store packs. A few years ago, a Gardenweb member whose user name was "GoneFishin'" ordered seed of one specific tomato variety (might have been Porterhouse) online and then picked up a seed packet of the same variety at a local store to test our theory that the catalog packs had more seed per pack. The packet from Burpee was about $4.00 or $4.25 but contained 40 or 50 seeds. The packet from Wal-Mart was about $1.26 or $1.37 and it contained 8 or 9 seeds. After he reported those results, I did the same thing the following year with a new zinnia introduction. Sure enough, the more expensive pack from the website/catalog had 40 seeds and the 4 packets I bought at a local store had between 7 and 9 seeds. So, even though the cheaper packets seemed like a better deal initially, I would have had to buy 5 or 6 packets of the cheaper seeds at the store to get the same amount of seed that was found in a more expensive packet from the website. For a while, Thompson & Morgan sold their surplus seed on a website called Value Seed for 99 cents a pack, and it was understood that this was a clearance website and you likely were getting "old" seed. However, most folks who bought the slightly older surplus seed did not have germination problems. Many seed companies buy their seed from the same seed wholesalers so often the seed from one company is no different than the seed from another time at the time the bulk purchase is made. From that point on, different companies pack, ship and store seeds differently and that can affect viability. Companies that pack their seeds inside little foil packets which then are inside the paper packets probably ensure better viability. Companies that store their seeds in climate-controlled warehouse probably ensure better viability. As a consumer, it is hard to know which companies to trust. I tend to use the same companies over and over because I've had success with their seed and trust it. The companies I choose are not always the highest priced ones or the lowest priced ones, but the more reliable ones. When purchasing from a specific company for the first time ever, I make small purchases and run germination tests to see if the seeds I bought will germinate well. If there are germination issues, I probably won't buy from that company again. When a company has an exclusive variety that only they and/or their sister companies (owned by the same holding corp.) sell, it usually is more expensive than an open-pollinated variety sold by every company in the world. That's the law of supply and demand at work. Big Boy tomato seed has been around for decades and you can buy it plenty of places for around $1 or $2 per pack. Brandy Boy F-1 hybrid is a Burpee exclusive, though, and it is available from only a couple of Burpee-owned companies and it will run $4 or $5 per pack. So, with any variety you purchase, you need to do your research well in order to know you're getting the best price. Hope this info helps a little. I always carry the thought around in my mind that "if anything seems too good to be true, it usually is" or "buyer beware". I knowthere are some great discount seed companies out there, but you have to start slow with a company that's new to you and not sink too much money into their seeds until you've tested a few to see how they perform. Some of the bigger companies with big name reputation, and Burpee Seed is a good example of this, do charge higher prices. They have huge printing costs for those glossy, photo-laden catalogs and they have big advertising budgets. Smaller, online firms avoid many of those costs and pass the savings along to the consumer. That's not a bad thing. Dawn

Concur, altho Pole purple pod is a bit more heat sensitive than many. Ferry Morse carries an excellent selection of beans, but not all will be available at many outlets. In pole beans they carry Kentucky Blue, Kentucky Wonder, Romano, , Trianfo Violet, Blue Lake, Rattlesnake. They also have a good selection of bush beans including Amythyst, Royal Burgandy, Landreth's Stringless, Blue Lake, Contender (my favorite), Derby, Green Crop, Provider, Burpee Stringless green Pod, Harvester, Tendergreen, Top Crop etc. http://www.plantationproducts.com/catalog/cfCatalog.cfm?c=3008