I LOVE seeds. LOVE them! You should see my seed collection; it’s enormous, even after paring down a few years ago. 😉
I bet you couldn’t guess, then, that I’m a big fan of seed catalogs. I have my favorites, below, but I’m looking for some new favorites! Please leave a comment and let us know which ones you love!
Seed Savers Exchange – Seed Savers Exchange is a wonderful organization that maintains a collection of 25,000 rare vegetable varieties at their Heritage Farm in Iowa. Their catalog contains only heirloom veggies, and has lots of pictures! You can also become a member of SSE and trade rare garden seeds with other members.
As a side note, I’m totally into heirloom vegetables, and I believe very strongly in the importance of growing and saving one’s own seed; this liberates us from dependence on hybrid crops and the corporate seed companies behind them (“buy new seed from us each year!”), and most importantly, growing & saving seed from heirlooms maintains genetic diversity in our food supply, which could possibly be a matter of life and death at some point in the future. And by saving your own seeds year after year from your heirloom or open-pollinated plants, you are actually “customizing” your veggies for your unique backyard growing conditions!
Johnny’s Seeds – Based in Maine, what I love about their catalog is the detailed seed starting & growing instructions for each vegetable they sell. I love the little charts by each veggie that show the optimum germination temperature for that particular seed. Very helpful! I also like how they clearly denote “F1” if the variety is a hybrid.
Pinetree Garden Seeds – Another friendly, gardener-oriented company based in Maine. Their seeds are generally better priced than other places and are clearly marked with “F1” if the variety is a hybrid. (Not all seed catalogs do this!)
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds – I like the longer-than-usual variety descriptions, as well as the fact that they list the average seed life for each type of vegetable. They also note whether the variety is hybrid or open pollinated.
Leave a comment and let us know which seed catalogs are your favorites, and why!
Until recently when my eyes where opened I used/got the normal seed catalogs now I’m a fan of SSE and that’s 90% of what I’m seeding now.
My very favorite catalogs are: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (wonderful farm in Missouri with many rare seeds and varieties offered), Cook’s Garden (well-named because there is everything in it a cook could want), Territorial Seed Company of Cottage Grove, Oregon (has some wonderful tomato and Veggie varieties)& Renee’s Garden (California, that magic word where I think rocks could grow!). The Vermont Bean Seed Company has beans I’ve never heard of and wonderful descriptions.
For a lot of old fashioned seeds, Shumway’s is great. They have been around a long time and offer things like Giant Mangels, King of the Garden Limas and many others.
All of these are certainly a feast for the eyes not to mention what they can send a gardener.
I used to order from Hastings and Earl Mays years ago, but they are out of business. Nothing better on a snowy day (5 inches here in Dallas, TX today!) than looking through the catalogs and think about what can be grown.
Some of the covers and illustrations are like paintings in all of the catalogs. I save many of them just for that reason.
Lindsey,
Yeah…like you, I used to get catalogs from places like Burpee, Stokes, Park Seed, and others who mostly sold hybrids. I’m so glad heirlooms are coming back into vogue!
Jeanette,
Awesome list!!! Thank you SO much for your suggestions! I’m going to head over to these websites and order some catalogs! 🙂
I’m also in the Baker’s Creek camp. I’ve been there a couple of times and to Seed Savers once, they both have quite the set-up.