Vegetable seeds

I've noticed a lot of folks talking about ordering seed from different seed catalogs. I was just on "Johnny's selected seeds" website looking around. A pack of Carrot seed was $4.95 plus shipping. Are they kidding? It would cost me a few hundred dollars to buy all my seed from them.

I buy all my seed at a local Rural King store and also Lowe's has a great selection of seed and the healthiest plants I've found anywhere.  I've noticed  Lowe's AND Wal-Mart both sell BONNIE plants but Lowe's plants are a much better quality. Bigger, greener and healthier at about the same price. I think Wal-Mart puts their plants out to early to get the jump on everyone else and sometimes they get a little frost bit. I don't think Wal-Mart keeps their plants watered as they should either. Just my opinion.

It CAN get a bit pricey, lol! I get the majority of mine from Baker Creek. But I will also buy from WM, HD, Lowe's... (I concentrate on organic heirlooms.)

And you can always ask if someone here will send you something specific you're interested in. They may be expensive, but some of those packages hold hundreds of seeds.

I've stopped buying from Baker Creek.   With just a small plot, there's no point in paying shipping and handling and buying several packages that'll never get planted.  I just swing into the local Armstrong, Osh, and box stores and get what I can get and try and save seed from things that worked well.

I use Sustainable Seed Co. Discounted prices, free shipping, and they're here in CA, so I have a better chance of getting something that grows well, here. They also have great end-of-season sales, so I already have almost everything I need for next year.  

Most of Johnny's carrots are hybrids (identified by the F1 notation) so the seeds are the offspring of a specific cross of two varieties. It sounds like the process of producing the hybrid seeds can be inefficient/complicated because one wants to prevent the "mother" variety that will make the actual seeds from crossing with itself. And one may not be interested in the seeds from the "father" variety regardless of whether they've crossed with the "mother" or each other (when the mother/father varieties produce both male and female flower parts.) That means the amount of garden space/work is more per seed because of the space the "father" plants used without yielding seeds themselves (they were just pollen donors.)

Bottom line - hybrids tend to be more expensive, and how much more expensive depends on the type of plant. I think Johnny's intended customer base is somewhat more towards growers with small farms, who may need the specific combination of traits hybrids can supply -- and they are more likely to go through a whole packet of seeds in one season.

AtlantaMarie also has a point about the number of seeds in a packet. Not all packets state the number of seeds in them, so it's hard to compare the price per seed. Seed packets at the garden sections of box stores may be cheaper, but it may be both because you are getting fewer seeds as well as an inherently less expensive non-hybrid variety. The store packets I've seen often list a weight that doesn't mean much to me, and/or list how many rows you can plant which also means nothing to me since I have no experience row-gardening (my parents were SFG-ers, too!)
 
A similarly priced packet of seeds of one sort of plant can also contain a dramatically different number of seeds as that of another
- a $3 packet of 800 standard orange heirloom carrot seeds from Baker's Creek, 16/sq but double-seeded (32 seeds/sq) because of tricky/inconsistent germination, is about 12 cents per square, and at 32 seeds/sq you get 25 squares worth of carrots per packet.
- a $2.75 packet of 50 beans seeds from Baker's Creek, 9/sq (assuming perfect germination) is 50 cents per square, and you only get 5 and half squares worth of seeds in a packet.
- a $2.50 packet of lettuce seeds, 250 seeds, 4/sq, 4 cents/sq, 62 squares per packet
- a $2.50 packet of broccoli seeds, 300 seeds, 1/sq, <1 cent/sq, 300 sq/packet!

I assume many of us end up with packets of seeds that contain more than we are likely to plant before the seeds lose too much vitality and at least some would be happy to share or trade. I still feel like a newbie here, but I haven't come across any posts where someone got berated for asking if anyone had something particular to share! I don't know if people tend to wait until the catalogs come out to make decisions about what to keep/buy/give away, but I don't think it hurts to ask early, especially if there's something you just want to try out one square of next year rather than committing to a full packet straight off.

I got a fair portion of my seeds for this past growing season from Pine Tree Seeds (superseeds.com), a few from Baker's Creek, a few from other places online that had the specific varieties I was looking for, and a mix from stores, the farm store I used to CSA from, and trading with a friend (Seed Saver Exchange, Johnny's, High Mowing, Botanical Interests, Burpee, Olds, and Ferry-Morse.) Pine Tree seed packets tend to be cheaper because they contain fewer seeds (example, $1.50 carrot pack containing 300 seeds: half the price of a $3 BC packet, but more expensive per seed.) I'll order from Pine Tree Seeds again, but I later found a virus on my computer in the order I saved from them -- doesn't mean it came from them since viruses can hop around to different files inside your computer, but it's a reminder to update your security software before placing orders online.

Don't forget we have a "Seed Traders Corner" with several topics in it.


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There are 410 Topics regarding Seeds! Don't forget this sticky: https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4718-seed-companies

Maybe it is time to update the list? Take a look at companies. See one you really like? You can let TD or me know the reason with 2 adjectives, i.e., reasonable price, generous amount, high viability, good service, etc.