Buying Seeds?

[walleyes12]

Where does everyone buy their vegetable seeds? I read alot of people buy their seeds through a Catalogue, where can someone like myself access one of these catalogue? Is there any good websites anyone would like to share? Thanks everyone!

[fishwater]

Johnny's Selected Seeds is a good employee owned company. Their seeds work awesome in our climate. I've order over $1000 in product from them annually for the past 8 years with very few issues.

[Dotch]

Johnny's looks interesting, 1st time I'd heard of that one, thanks for posting it. May have to try a different squash or two from there. Jung's out of WI has been around a long time and I order a fair amount of stuff from them. My folks ordered from them some 40 years ago. Gurney's out of IN (used to be SD) has been around awhile too, although they went thru some difficult financial times a few years back. Their selection is not what it once was. Usually once you get on a list or order from someplace, you get catalogs from all over, even if you haven't ordered from them. They apparently share or buy the lists from each other.

[walleyes12]

Thanks guys, great starting point

[solbes]

I'll throw in some props for Gurneys. I've ordered lots of stuff from them. I've had trees, blueberry bushes, etc. die years after their order. Send 'em a quick email with my order number and explain what happened. Come spring time I get my replacements in the mail. Great service!

[MN Mike]

I've had good results with Jordan Seeds also stumbled across a site this winter called tomatogrowers, tons of tomato and pepper plants to choose from and they sort it out pretty well for you too.

I haven't ordered anything from Gurneys in years........

Mike

[croixflats]

Thanks MnMike for tomatogrowers. Ive been looking for a certain paste tomato, Polish Linguisa, and they have it. AWSOME.

[KEN W]

The past 2 years I've orderd from Jungs,Pinetree,Morgan County,and Henry Fields.They all have websites you can order from.So you don't need a catalog.There is also Burpee,Gurneys,Twilley,Stokes(large selection of sweet corn and tomatoes),Farmer(this one is in Fairbolt,MN.)Shumway,Cook's,Vermont Bean and Seed,Harris,Territorial(early tomatoes from Univ. of Oregon for cool summer temps),and Willhite(They specialize in Watermelon)

I plant almost all hybrid seeds.Can't get most of them from the rack in a store.

Pinetree and Morgan county are smaller seed packets.Which I like.So they cost less.Most packets have way tio many seeds and get old before you use them all.I would rather have smaller packets and order new seed every year or 2.

[pushbutton]

my top 3

1---johnny's, maine

2---pinetree, vermont

3---territorial, oregon

all have excellent varieties for our climate.

[loosegoose]

I had very poor germination with seeds from Gurney's last year. I'm just purchasing from a local store this year. But Gurney's plant products were very good.

[Dotch]

The seeds from Jungs arrived earlier this week. Have been very satisfied with their overall quality as well as the end product over the years. I buy some local too to fill in on things like string beans, snap peas, beets, radishes, etc. For nursery stock I go to area nurseries or in the case of larger plantings like our new connecting pheasant corridor, through my SWCD. For transplants and bedding plants, I am at the mercy of my wife who works at a major greenhouse operation in Owatonna this time of year propagating and growing them. The selection is good and we usually get packs where one plant didn't grow or were over/underwatered at a reasonable price. The bonus is my vine crops are all started and ready to rock when the season is right to plant them. I very gladly pay in squash and melons for that convenience.

[dairyman]

we went Gurneys years ago---------NEVER AGAIN!!!!!

[KEN W]

I almost always order some from Jungs and 1 or 2 others depending on what I want to plant.Morgan County has been good the past year or 2.These seeds from mail order places are almost always hybrids and therefore cost more than your off the rack seeds at local store

Example....I've looked at Northrup King,Ferry Morse and others in the store and couldn't find one decent sweet corn variety.Almost all were non-hybrids from 40-50 years ago.Same with melons.

[Steve Foss]

We buy all our seeds from one of the couple of local greenhouses. It's a rite of spring for us to head down there in late March or early April after planning what we'll be planting in the veggie gardens. If we want some type of specialty seed, we get them ordered in by the greenhouse.

In May, we'll head down there again to look over the flats of annuals. We don't plant many annuals (perennials are our preference), but we do have some nice window boxes specifically for the annuals.

While we do a LOT of our shopping online due to high prices and the lack of selection locally on many items, buying seeds just needs to be done in person for us. You can't breathe in the moist sweet earthy smell of a greenhouse when shopping with a catalog.

This also supports our local businesses.

[Dotch]

I can certainly understand that. I know that I catch holy h e double hockeysticks if I buy something they have at the greenhouse where the wife works somewhere else. And I do like breathing the "rareified" air of the greenhouse. Probably something to do with the nitrous oxide being released from all that warm, moist high organic matter artificial soil...

Some of the squash and melons as Ken points out are just not available locally so have to get them from online or from a catalog. Just curious Steve what kinds of things you raise in that Ely area. Recall my garden at the Little House on the Prairie in ND just south of the Canadian border. Cool season stuff was super but the varieties available in the day on the rest of it left something to be desired. Here in the banana belt we get by with just about anything although a peach tree would be exciting to have someday.