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I ordered from Willhite Seed. They are from Texas and have a good selection and great pricing
Thanks for the information, Jill. I dislike seed packets that have minimal information on them. I use Botanical Interests out of Colorado as well as Southern Exposure and True Leaf. Botanical Interests catalogue is pure artwork, absolutely beautiful. The seed packets are, as well. They include a lot of info for growing including a drawing of what the seedling looks like. No more pulling seedlings instead of weeds!
Great video and information. Glad I found you!
Jill many thanks for the complete information on seed catalogs. Also the webinar on books was very helpful resulting in three new resources. In the past I have been pleased with Parks Seeds. Your approach to gardening is greatly appreciated and admired.
Walter Ray Davis Jr
Great video! I didn't realize the catalogs had as much education in them as they do, thank you for sharing that! I really like Botanical Interests and Wilhite here in Texas is pretty good too.
Did you now that Those company m as y be selling there seed on Amazon . And frankly in these time you taking a chance every way.
But Thank for this information.
This was very helpful. Thanks.
J. L. Hudson, Seedsman La Honda Ca. Just to get this name out there. Thanks for very informative video.
Hayefield Seeds Pennsburg, PA
Any feedback on Gurneys?
Hoss Tools and Harris Seed both great companies
Thanks! Loads of info!
I've been using Johnnie's for many years. Also in NW, so fortunate to be able to get Territorial in local stores.
Have you ordered anything from Park Seed company? I see great things about their bio domes and whopper tomatoes but haven’t ordered from them yet. Thanks
Excellent video/info! Thank you so much
I love all these
Last year I had a horrible experience with MIGardner seeds. I had excellent results with their seeds in 2020 and 2021, so they were my main seed source last year. I had a lot of different MIGardener seed packets with poor germination rates, some with zero germination on their 2022 seeds. In contrast, I had excellent germination from seeds obtained from all other sources, including about three dozen specialty hot pepper varieties, which are notoriously slow and difficult to germinate.
I wrote to MIGardener’s customer service, advised that I had been a loyal MIGardner fan and referred them to many friends and family as well, but I asked for new seeds or a refund on the number of their seeds that had been bad in 2022. They did not respond to that email, nor did they respond to the next two additional emails I sent to their customer service department. I even posted comments asking for a customer service on their YouTube videos because I know their owner, Luke, does read through those comments. They never responded.
I did a search for online reviews from other MIGardener customers and found a lot of people that had the exact same problem last year, that they had bad seeds, and MIGardner categorically refuses to respond to customer inquiries.
I personally will never do business with MIGardner again, and, I highly recommend avoiding them. Seeds are not like other consumer products which can be replaced sometimes within the hour if a particular product is found to be unsatisfactory. Sometimes it can take up to a month for seeds to germinate/not germinate, and by the time a gardener figures out that he or she got a bad batch of seeds, it may make growing that variety unproductive or impossible that season. I would be willing to forgive a company for having some substandard products if they stood behind them, and made things right with the customer, but when a business hides its head in the sand and won’t even respond to customer communications, it is one to avoid.
I too like and have ordered from Baker Creek a number of times. It is especially handy if one remembers that there were a couple seed varieties one forgot from the last order, that they will fill a small order for just a few packets without charging as much or more than the cost of the seeds for shipping. The only seeds I have had from them that were not productive, were for Japanese wasabi radishes, which did not germinate; however, I believe that was a free packet they threw in with my order, so I cannot complain too much.
One thing I would warn people about with Baker Creek: They are very fond of using ultra colorful photographs of produce that may not actually resemble the real life plants and vegetables you’ll grow from their seeds, much like how the close-up photos of a fast food hamburger on a TV ad likely show a number of ingredients/components on the alleged burger that are not even food products. I especially would warn people not to go for the darker, multicolor tomatoes, that looks so beautiful in their catalogs, particularly Brad‘s Atomic Grape. Every single one of the darker, multicolor tomatoes I have grown have been substandard in multiple ways, including plant health, productivity, and taste.
Sometimes, as with the photos of the Brads Atomic Grape tomato, they will include photos of both unripe and ripe produce together to create a more colorful marketing photo. While that unripe pepper might be fully edible, the same is not the case with a product like a tomato.
One other Missouri seed company I like a lot is Morgan County Seeds. They cater more to commercial growers, or at least people who are planting enough quantity to sell at a farmers market, and have very good quantity and bulk seed pricing. But for most vegetables, they also have single packet prices that are cheaper than many other seed sources for small quantities for home gardeners.
I have not ordered a tremendous variety of seeds from them because they tend to have more utilitarian/garden-variety (Forgive the pun), seeds, and I tend to be a bit of a sucker for more rare and unique varieties of seeds. However, every single type of seed I have bought from them has had nearly perfect germination rates, the highest on average from any seed source I have tried.
Morgan County Seeds are definitely more old-school than most of the other seed companies. They have only a couple of pages of color photos in their catalog with the rest being black and white and often, just a product listing in a chart for a particular variety. One odd negative about this company is that this past year they added a number of hot pepper varieties, and for some reason their prices for a single packet of those are literally 2 to 4 times the price available from most other seed sources – $12-$14 per packet for the super hot varieties.
Black Friday is an awesome time to place orders since a lot of retailers offer free shipping. I was able to get pretty much everything I needed from Harris, Seeds’n’Such and Burpee. By the way I hate Burpee’s price model ($6+shipping on their website while the same seeds are $1.99 at Home Depot), but I needed Brandy Boy and a few other things only they carry, so ended up giving them my $.
True Leaf aka Mountain Valley drives me nuts because there is practically no info on their packets. In addition to those mentioned in the vid, I have had good luck with Park Seed.
I really like that your videos are informative, accurate, and to the point
Seed savers is local to me. We love going to the “farm” for seeds, plants, and classes.
Website links would have been helpful.
Catalog seeds are not that good, total waste of time & money
These catalogs are worthless to waste time on them
This year I purchased seeds from Etsy (the highest germination rate sellers). I could regret it but I was really focused on people in my zone, that have grown well nearby. We will see how it goes
I can't find affiliate links
This year I ordered from Pinetree Garden Seeds and Baker Creek. Pinetree had some seeds (Pineapple Ground Cherry and Kakai Pumpkin) that I have been searching for and I also ordered seed potatoes, asparagus crowns, strawberries, Ramps, and some seed starting supplies. They have shipped everything except the live plants.