Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds/Rareseeds.com is now saying to allow 30 days for receipt of US orders.
eek…i just ordered a few more seeds but figure i will be ok waiting.
I put in my order from them on Sat. What did you get from them? I ordered Beefsteak, Mortgage Lifter, Tsalma, Rheinlands Ruhm, Lehrertomate, Durmitor tomatoes and some Haricot Vert beans. Didn’t need too many this year, as I still have a decent inventory. We needed some Watermelon beefsteak seeds but he was out of them. It’s been one of our favorites over the years.
I’ve been buying from them for 6 years, they always seem to have good prices, cheap shipping and a good variety. He gets a bunch of varieties from Russia and Germany it seems.
You can always plant some pawpaw that are easier to get to, that may deter the deer! Or native persimmon or something else they may prefer more than your apples if you have space…
I ordered strawberries from them last week. Hoping for good quality as well!
At the very least folks it might not be the best option but I’m sure the big box stores and tractor supply etc will carry some sort of seeds. They might not be the variety you want, but at least you will have home grown food on the table!
I have ordered from Nourse for years and have only gotten good quality. You should expect that your roots will be nice.
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Blueberry, are you saying deer don’t like currant bushes? Even the relatively thornless ones? I have mine all individually caged in chicken wire. Was it not necessary?
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Deer will munch most anything if they’re really hungry. Maybe a little taste, but they don’t consume anything poisonous such as hellebores or daffodils. Other things being plentiful, they’ll take a bite or two of currant but then move on. It’s the aromatics…the smell … that works.
You might get some nibbles without cages, but they wouldn’t keep your plant eat to the ground.
A flower such as wild bergamot works well…as a deterrent also.
Just got a few basics, cukes, leeks, carrots, squash, bunch of herbs, a few types of lettuce. Think the only new tomato I’m trying this year is an Orange Kentucky Beefsteak. I am pretty well stocked up with seeds from the past few seasons.
I think this is the third year I am buying from them. I love the prices and quick shipping. Also, I really like how generous they are in seed quantity given.
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Oh, you will love that one. We have grown it every year for the last 5 years. It’s a big yellow beefsteak, a bit sweet and a little tart. The plant gets huge and has good disease resistance. They can get big, I think the largest one we had was about 24oz.
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Placed orders with Johnny’s, Jordans, and Harris today, any organic seed is getting hard to find in pkt. size but everything else seemed to be in stock. If you are a larger grower, let me suggest you try Jordans in Mn. I’ve used them for 25yrs. now and their service, advice and seed quality are top notch. They do sell in large pkt sizes only but their prices can’t be beat.
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I seriously doubt if there is any difference in organic seed and non organic…the offspring will all be either “organic” or ‘non-organic’ based on your own actions, not on the seed.
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Well, if you have a farm that’s “certified organic” there is a difference. The difference is between you keeping your certification (that cost $$ to get) and loosing it if you can’t prove that you did all you reasonably could to find organic seed for the plants you are growing. At least that’s my understanding.
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Basically correct FarmGirl. Certification does permit use of non-organically grown seed if there is no alternative. If there is an alternative and a grower uses seed that are not organically grown, they can and will lose their certification. I grew plants for a certified organic operation several years ago. The hoops I had to jump through included using natural wood in my greenhouse, not treated lumber, using all organic inputs which meant I had to mix my own grow mix, and sourcing seed from known organic suppliers. One positive that came from it is that I had to study the rules for organic operations extensively to the point of becoming expert enough to certify my own operation. I did not pursue certification due to collapse of the business that would have purchased the plants. Don’t even ask about using “treated” seed in an organic operation.
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For me i like to give money to organic suppliers and it usually proves that the plant is disease resistant enough to grow organically as it should still have to pass all the disease tests.
I wish we would change our organic rules to be less stringent and more adaptable.
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I just placed an order for Cherokee Purple, Pink Brandywine, Orange Kentucky, Azoychka, and Tatjana tomatoes at Ohio Heirloom because of you guys. Fortunately I didn’t give in to the urge to buy seeds from Walmart when I was there last night to get supplies for my hot callus pipe build. I will have most of the colors of the rainbow in my tomato garden this year! Also for anyone panicking - they seemed to have a lot in stock and a very good (affordable) selection and fair shipping rates. Why did it take me so long to think about buying garden seeds online?
https://ohioheirloomseeds.com/products
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I have grown all those except Tatjana, with various degrees of success. Of those, OKB has done the best for us. CP has been a bust here, but we usually have bad luck with dark varieties for some reason. Azoychka is a bright yellow variety, it has been a medium sized fruit, more tangy that other yellows. Pink BW has done pretty well the last couple years, but not a prolific producer.
We harvested about 180lb last year from about 40 plants and 13-15 varieties, but not all produced the same amount.
I have the “problem” of having too many different varieties of tomato seeds (over 50), and knowing I can’t possibly grow all of them. So, me and my wife have kind of whittled down our top dozen or so to try this year, and try to keep the total plants down to about 30. I know I won’t be able to keep it at that amount, tho.
I need to get my peppers started soon, but usually wait until April to start the 'maters.
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I have over 1000 varieties of tomatoes in my regular list to grow out and at best can get 150 of them each year. Then I have a few thousand breeding lines and a few hundred wild species lines and… and… and… Then there are a few hundred varieties of peppers. I would be so happy if I only had to maintain 50 or so varieties.
I try to grow about 360 tomato plants of around 150 varieties and 150 or so pepper plants of about 50 varieties each year.
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Why? Do you sell the plants? We don’t grow to sell, it’s just for our use for canning, salsa, soups, etc. Plus, we really don’t have enough area to plant, especially when I plant at 4ft spacing.
I tried to grow 33 varieties of tomatoes in 2016, about 70 plants total, and 25 pepper plants. It was a disaster because we had so much rain, so disease set in early. I bet we didn’t get ripe fruit off of half our diseased, wilted plants because they rotted. Plus, the soil wasn’t ideal, which may have contributed to the disease issues. And, it was a lot of work keeping them weeded, protected from deer, etc. Never again. I was overly ambitious, and it was too much for me to deal along with other chores.
So, I’d like to keep it down to 30-35 plants in a smaller plot that I can manage better. I’m planning on putting down weed barrier cloth so I don’t have to work keep the weeds at bay. Plus, reducing the amount of sucker branches would help, too. It’s a pain having half a dozen stakes on each plant because they get so unwieldy.
The cheap weed barrier from Walmart is pretty much a waste of money. Look into heavy duty ground cover fabric if you would like something that will last about 5 years on average. Mortonproducts.com has some at a fairly reasonable rate. Also, ground cover will only do so much. It works a lot better if covered with pine straw or similar mulch.
I sell about 30,000 seedlings each year, but that is not why I maintain so many seed. It is partially as a seed preservationist and partially because I am doing quite a bit of tomato breeding.
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And if you believe that their production methods are better for the environment, why not?
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Not to get off topic too much, but I figured here was as good a place as any to ask. How do you maintain true to type tomatoes etc as they are from seed? Do you only plant specific varieties together and hope other pollen does not enter the seed genetic pool? Obviously some heirlooms have been around for over a century, how do you know it’s the “same” tomato year after year if it’s a new seed?