Rating the seed companies

I started approximately 500 seeds indoors (I'm giving away some seedlings, and I wanted to be able to choose the best 4 of 6 in other cases) and another several hundred outdoors. Most have broken the surface, and some are already in the ground outside, so it's time for me to rate some of these seed companies. These seeds were sourced from seven different companies, and here are my reviews of them based on germination rate, responsiveness to contacts, pricing, and more.

The four heirloom seed companies, focused in part on keeping multiple varieties alive and in the the hands of gardeners, in order. All of these companies sent seeds quickly and none gouged me for postage and handling.

Victory Seeds (Oregon). With a somewhat more limited selection than the next two companies, but several varieties/species I couldn't find elsewhere, their prices are about half of what those other companies are. They're small enough that when you contact them, you get a real reply, likely from the owner. If you live in the Pacific Northwest in particular, you definitely should be dealing with them (as it's possible plants in your particular climate, seed-saved over generations, might have adapted to that climate better than seeds grown over generations in another climate.) All of my greens germinated at 100% and the only seed I struggled with was lavender, which is notoriously difficult to get to germinate well, so I can hardly blame them for that. For a $40 order, I got a free herb collection, and I tell you, I don't know if I have a healthier plant growing out of everything than the parsley they sent me. It laughs at frost and grows by leaps and bounds. A great product for a low price. They do not spend a lot of money on fancy photography for seed packets, but they do put the seeds in ziplock tiny plastic containers in a paper envelope, which is plenty good for me. The lack of photography is probably why they can keep prices so low. I prefer low prices to high marketing.

Price: A+ Germination rates: A Human contact/responsiveness/honesty: A+  Overall grade: A+

Seed Savers Exchange (Iowa). While located in Iowa, what this group is is a not for profit organization dedicated to saving heirloom seeds, comprised of many volunteers growing and saving seeds in their own farms or yards. They have great training on how to do this, available for free, and for that alone, I will continue to support them.They also trained the Baker Creek guy, who monetized what they keep as a not-for-profit endeavor, so they're the source, as far as I know, for the modern heirloom/seed-saving movement. They also give free seeds with larger orders. One problem with them, to my mind, is they don't have seed reviews on their website. To figure out if a variety is good for your climate, slow growing or not, prone to get a certain pest that you have a lot of, is more or less productive than average, you have to hunt for reviews elsewhere. Still, for rare seeds I can't find at Victory Seeds, I'll use them in the future.

Price: B Germination rates: A- Human contact/etc: A- Overall grade: A-

Baker Creek Seeds (Missouri). Certainly the top selling heirloom seed company in the US, they have a great reputation for responsiveness despite their size, and also cool stuff for people local to the Ozarks, like a pioneer village, festivals, and a seed shop. Their full catalog, The Whole Seed Catalog, is a book worth buying, for its gorgeous photography and fun stories about seeds. Every X dollars you spend, they send you a free seed packet to try out. The problem with all that gorgeous photography is that it drives the seed prices up, so everybody pays for it, as everybody pays a sort of surcharge for them having so many seeds available (not all of them will sell, so to have them available, the economics of it all means that all prices need to be a bit higher to compensate). Their germination rates for the few seeds I bought from them were terrific. Except for the bonus seeds, I can't say I had any contact with them at all, so I can't rate anything but the quickness with which they mailed seeds to me during prime seed buying time.

Price: B- Germination rates: A Human contact/responsiveness/honesty: A. Overall: B+

MI Gardener (Michigan, but the seeds are sourced through Baker Creek and elsewhere). At 99 cents per seed packet, a frugal person like me might jump on this company. He manages to stay low-tech but still put a photo on his seed packets, which is smart. He buys in bulk from other places and then divides the seeds out and resells them. The problem is, while the seed packets that said "25 seeds" on them did in fact have 25 seeds, but the packets that said "150 seeds" on website and packet both had 72 and 78 seeds. Can he not count past 70, or is he intentionally scamming us? Despite the low price, if you're not giving me what you promised, I cannot even give you highest marks for that. The one place I see someone rating his company as problematic, he sure got defensive. A fledgling company should just make it right to build good will and conduct their arguments in private, not public. It made me not want to contact him to see if he'd make the cheat on seed count right. Just easier to avoid him in the future.

Price: C Germination rates: A- Human contact/honesty: F  Overall grade: C-


Now on to big box store-purchased seeds from national companies that distribute to such places.

Dollar Tree. Labeled "American Seed Co." but apparently actually sourced elsewhere, possibly from the same company/seed farms that produced Ferry-Morse seeds (?!? It really is a mystery, and I'm a damned good Google searcher and can't entirely figure this out), these seeds are sometimes available at Walgreens as well for similar prices. At Dollar Tree, in February and March until they sell out (and they will), they are four packets for a dollar. Yup, you heard that right: 25-cent seeds. Sometimes there aren't as many seeds in each packet as there might be elsewhere. But a bell pepper seed packet I bought had 31 seeds in it. You really need more than 31 pepper plants this year? I don't. As I grow two other varieties of sweet peppers as well, this pack'll last me four years, and pepper seeds are a breeze to save after that. The seeds germinated and grew well in most cases--only one packet had spotty germination. When I lived in Arizona, I grew tomatoes in containers for four years from one such seed packet and harvested many tasty little tomatoes. There aren't many varieties at my local Dollar Tree, though I've seen online people purchase varieties my store did not carry. Most are heirloom/open pollinated varieties (which make sense--it'd be cheaper for them to do it this way), so you could seed-save yourself, easy with the tomatoes and peppers and squash, and for one 25-cent purchase, have tomatoes, peppers, and squash for the rest of your life. Seriously, what's to complain about? Even if one of ten packs had poor germination rates, you're still well ahead of the game. Want to have a veg garden for next to nothing? Use your native soil if possible, hoe up weeds or lawn for a space to plant your seeds, use a few fallen branches for trellising, and for three bucks, you can feed yourself veg all summer long. Crazy good value.

Price A+++ Germination rates: A- Overall grade: A+

Ferry-Morse. These are available at Lowe's and elsewhere. I got pretty good germination out of them. The $2=$2.50 price isn't great--certainly not compared to Dollar Tree--and while there are more varieties on the racks than Dollar Tree had, it isn't all that impressive a selection where I live. A mix of hybrids and open pollinated varieties. (You'll have to google varieties to figure out which is which, for they don't tell you on the packet, which is irritating.)  In germination examples, bok choi did well for me, crookneck squash considerably less well. (though in their defense, it's harder to assess how seeds sown outdoors are performing, as birds may have grabbed a seed or two.)

Price: B Germination rates: B Overall grade: B

Burpee. Seriously, the worst germination rates of any brand I bought. I grabbed an herb, a flower, and a vegetable, just to try them out to do a review like this, and of 20-odd seeds sown, only three came up. NOPE! With prices just under Ferry-Morse's, they also give you fewer seeds. And they use plastic packaging which is not helpful or handy or easy to close, and it is not good for the planet either. But it's the germination rates that earns them the worst grade of the bunch

Price: B-  Germination rates: F Overall Grade: F

Next year, then, my seed sources will be limited to:

1) My own saved seeds and seeds on hand from this year's purchases
2) Dollar Tree seeds
3) Victory Seeds
4) Seed Savers Exchange for rare varieties I have a hankering to try

Garden tasks done this week

I've finally started the tomatoes indoors. Good thing the time came to do that, for I kept buying tomato seed varieties. I feel a bit of a hoarder! I have ten sorts, and 1-5 of each sort planted in 20 ounce drink cups. I may also grab a sun sugar hybrid tomato start at Lowe's when I go there Monday. (I'm at Lowe's so often, it's ridiculous. I see the clerks there more often than I see my relatives.) Sun Sugar is the sweetest tomato I've ever had and I wouldn't mind one every year. My peppers are coming along, as are my eggplants. I have a lot of potted flower starts awaiting that forecast that says that for the next 10 days there will be no freeze.

I'm in the process of hardening off all these indoor plant starts. I have head lettuce and herbs and potatoes-in-a-bag all hardened off ready to go outside permanently once the weather cooperates.

I did go ahead and plant root crop seeds and put the onions and leeks out. They can tolerate 30 degrees, and that's the worst that is in my forecast right now--and that frost is only one night of the next 10. So white turnips, yellow beets, and two varieties of orange carrots are seeded in the big garden. White chard and rainbow chard seeds are in with them, as is bok choi. Kohlrabi starts are planted out.  Kale starts are planted out and looking good.

rainbow chard. image Wikimedia

I've also been working on "infrastructure." I put in anti-rabbit fencing around sensitive crops. They leave potatoes, peppers, and tomatoes alone, so I don't need to fence them. Melons and winter squash are too big to fence, though I'll put row covers over a chicken wire cover over them until the female flowers appear to prevent insect damage, and I'm hoping it deters rabbits.

I also worked on repairing my shed, which has some rotting wood and the bottom where it touched soil. I'm cutting away the worst of it, putting up new wood, and the door had pretty bad peeling paint (despite facing north), so I did one whole day of just scraping, wire brushing, and sanding. I'm waiting for the next rain storm to come and go before painting the door and new boards.

It's the photographer who is crooked, not the shed!

Once that's done, I'm tacking chicken wire to the bottom all around the shed to prevent rabbits from living beneath it. I bend out about a foot of the chicken wire fencing along the ground too, so they can't dig in, a trick I learned from gardeners on the internet.

Where I put compost already and I will plant nothing until at least the first of May or, in one case, not until next year (currant bushes), I've put in daikon radish seeds. They're big, and the concept is, they send their big roots down and break up clay soil. Instead of harvesting them normally, you break them off just under the surface, cover them back up, and let them rot in the ground. So they've forced a tunnel into the clay and over a year's time, the rotting vegetation will incorporate itself into the clay soil with the help of worms and make the clay less impenetrable, and something of the tunnel it made will remain. The compost will help loosen the soil too, as will the leaves and cardboard that are under the compost. (I applied those in early December.) I've lifted the cardboard and can see the worms already at work on it, so the system is working so far. It will take three years of similar mulching, cover crops, and so on to make the clay soil into something that won't bend your spade when you try to dig it after a dry spell.

After the shed project is done, I'm building trellising for the tomatoes, which won't be planted out for another month. I'm using either seven foot t-posts with pig fencing attached, or nine foot metal electrical conduit that I'll drill holes into to use as stakes or as framework for a nylon net trellis I bought for $8 online. It's all a bit of an experiment, though I do know I need to tie tomatoes up better than I did last year. I've also learned that it's perfectly okay to top your tomato plants off once they reach the top of your trellising system. You probably aren't losing a lot of tomatoes doing so, as those last bits flowering 10 ft up in the sky might not have gotten ripe before the first frost anyway.

conduit + net trellis.

I also replaced my sliding back screen door with about the most expensive one Lowe's sells, and this thing is going to last for a while. The installation is simple as can be.

So many of my veg are planted in the ground or under grow lights inside for the spring and summer garden. Repairs and improvements are coming along. I have bare-rooted strawberries in hanging baskets (the only way I can get a strawberry; otherwise, squirrels will get them all.) I haven't messed up anything in any big way yet, though I've learned lessons that will help next year be much more streamlined and simple.

The main lesson learned? Plant everything you can possibly plant via seed directly in the ground. The plants will be hardier, the stems thicker, and the hardiest will survive. Pretty much all I'll begin inside under grow lights next year are peppers, eggplant, celery, and tomatoes, which have such a long growing season there's really no way around starting them inside. It'll save not only time and money, but the endless mess my kitchen and dining room have been in for the past three months! I'm getting tired of apologizing to visitors for how it looks.

I'll report in ten days or so with photos of my little crops as they grow up in the great outdoors.

My first bed planted

I've started growing cool-season vegetables under a low tunnel as of last week. This was my first version, but I made it lower when I saw how it behaved in the wind.

There are lettuce starts and lettuce seeds, spinach starts and spinach seeds, mache starts and radish seeds, and pea seeds in there. The idea of the low tunnel is that you get a greenhouse effect for a fraction of the price, and so if there's another cold snap, the plants will be fine. The hoops are just PVC, and the plastic is a big piece I bought to cover my back door to keep the cold winter air out. With the clamps, the whole thing cost less than $25. I should be able to keep things alive November through April next year with this system as well, and therefore have my own greens and carrots to harvest all winter long. Or so they claim! I'll have to see if it works as promised.

If it does work, and if all my winter squash works out, I might be able to be vegetable self-sufficient (what with canning and freezing) year-round. And in a few years, fruit self-sufficient too.

This planting and another area planted with onions and leeks cleared out one shelf of my greenhouse window in the kitchen so I can up-pot the annual flowers that are outgrowing their starting cells and move them there, and I will start tomatoes under the grow lights tomorrow. It's quite the juggling act to do all I want to with with a single grow light! But I'm managing, and I heard a clever trick recently that I may use next year: leave the grow lights on all the time, and rotate plants in and out every 12 hours, so you have some plants believing that day is night as they get going in life. That way, you can get away with half the grow lights and shelf space. Smart idea!

A few days later, I ordered in 2 cubic yards of compost. It was wet and weighed two tons. Here's two tons of compost at quarter til 9 in the morning:

And here's that spot in the driveway at 3:30 the same day.

Not bad for a woman in her mid-sixties, is it? :D

veggie seed starts

I have a mess of seed starts. It's my first year ever doing this, so there are a few leggy plants from experiments that didn't quite work. I think they'll all be fine, though, and grow into happy, healthy plants.

We start with a very rough plan of the vegetable part of my back yard. West is at the top, and only part of the house is drawn in. The thing labeled "big bed" is 10 x 14, and the raised bed is small, only 4 x 4. So it's clearly not to scale! I only sent 10 minutes drawing this. The bark paths are already down, and wow, are they making it easier to get around on that slick, wet clay soil. Smart idea, if I do say so myself. The sunflowers and red amaranth go outside the chain link fence and get tall enough they'll shield the garden from the view of the road, in case anyone finds such things unsightly. I'm also growing more tomatoes in my front yard, in front of where I park the RV, and some birdhouse gourds outside the fence and not far from the ground cherries.

After that is some pix of seed starts, captioned.

grow light and foil tent

seed starting mix and empty pots await

kohrabi

 

annual flowers

the greenhouse window is Phase B, and grow lights Phase A

The herbs just emerging -- sage and thyme