This year I decided to buy watermelon seeds from a new company, for me, called True Leaf Market. I’ve had nothing but very poor results to the point that I feel like I was scammed.
You guys know that I’m not a novice, when it comes to growing watermelons. I know what I’m doing as you can see from my many posts and pictures over the years.
I purchased from this company seeds of four varieties, Yellow Belly Black Diamond, Sweet Princess, Crimson Sweet, and Moon & Stars.
From Moon & Stars I had only one seed germinate that grew one 3 lb. melon From Crimson Sweet I had only two seeds germinate that grew 3, 4 lb. melons. Sweet Princess yielded 3 plants with 4, 4 lb melons.
But what has set me off the most is that I have a patch of 15 Black Diamond melons that are supposed to be Yellow Belly Black Diamonds. They put the wrong variety in the seed pack.
I have grown both varieties over the years and have posted results on the Cornell University melon website. In order to successfully grow Black Diamonds you have to have a large area, which I don’t have.
They will not ripen in a small space. That’s why I ordered Yellow Belly. Yellow Belly will ripen for me. I feel like I have wasted an entire growing season, because of the poor quality seeds sold by this company, and the scam with the Black Diamond. This was not an honest mistake.
Each year, I grow 3 patches of melons, two of which are basically barren and the third is full of melons that will never ripen.
This forum is for us old timers to help newbies learn from the years of experience that we’ve all had. Hopefully, they won’t make the same mistakes we all made and still make. That’s why I’m posting this. Please learn from my experience and buy your seeds from anybody except True Leaf Market.
That is very disappointing to hear. Were the Sweet Princess seed very small? That is a good identifier for that one.
I just recently got an order of watermelon seed from them for next year as they have many unavailable elsewhere. I will have to rethink what to do with those. I will do a germ test.
I know Sweet Princess is available from Reimer Seed. They list the germination and test date on their website. I have one hill of that but not ready anytime soon.
Sorry you had such trouble with True Leaf. A slick looking website and fancy packaging are worth nothing if the seed is crap.
Sorry to hear about that. What will be more telling, though, is how the company responds to complaints. I’ve had mislabeled seeds from companies I trust, and they’ll send a replacement if the see is mislabeled. I even seen some pull a variety from their web catalog for the year and offer refunds because they got reports back of mislabeled seeds.
For whatever its worth, I’ve had pretty good experiences with them. I did have a few types of seed (rosemary, peppermint, lavender) that had bad germination rates, but my vegetables and cover crops (tomatoes, pepper, broccoli, radishes, etc) all germinated very well. I did have some that germinated well but didn’t grow very well; could be something I did, or the seeds. Hard to say. They have such a huge variety that it wouldn’t surprise me if some of their seed sources were better or worse than others.
I’ve used them in the past with no big issue but this fall I’ve had close to zero germination. I planted a few hundred beets. None germinated. I soaked them first as is recommended for those tough seeds.
I planted a few hundred carrots. Zero germination.
I planted 50 or so small head cabbage. Two came up.
Now I’m not the most accomplished gardener for sure… But I’m not doing anything different this year than I have in the past. Over watered? Under watered?
I will say I do now see a few of the carrots coming up… This after 3 days of slow drizzle off and on. I got 0.54", 0.56", and 0.30" of much needed, slow soaking rains.
I’d rather be an idiot for doing something wrong or not being patient and it working out than never know why something didn’t grow.