Good seed companies
For those of you who don't like numbers ---
thanks for slogging through this technical lunchtime series. I've
saved the best for last!
In a previous
incarnation, Steve Solomon was the founder of Territorial Seeds, so
it's no surprise that his personal experiences with seed companies and
seed storage are the most powerful part of the book.
He explains that most seeds sold to the home gardener are low quality,
primarily because most of us don't know any better. ("Those seeds
didn't come up? Oh, I must have done something wrong!")
Nearly all seed
companies catering to our demographic simply buy bulk seed, repackage
it in pretty envelopes, and sell it for high prices. Only a few
seed companies either grow their own seeds or perform large seed trials
to ensure that the seeds they're selling are the proper variety, are
vigorous, and have high germination rates. Without these tests,
you could end up in the same boat I was in last year --- I bought some
Goldbar Hybrid seeds from Jung last year, and ended up with a squash
that looked nothing like the picture on the website.
Steve Solomon contacted
dozens of seed companies to inquire about their growing methods, and
came up with these few recommended suppliers for the United
States. He notes that you'll get the best results by buying from
a company in your climate zone.
- Northern U.S. -- Stokes, Johnny's
- Middle U.S. --- Stokes, Johnny's, Harris, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (with the caveat that SESE stocks a lot of relatively unproductive heirlooms)
- Southeast U.S. --- Park
(which is currently going through bankruptcy and may end up a worse
company)
- Maritime U.S. --- Territorial
I've always wondered
which seed companies were good and which ones were not, so I'm glad to
finally read an in depth analysis without lots of guesswork!
This post is part of our Gardening When It Counts lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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