some burpee, some livingston...some I have harvested myself from store bought peppers..
but there's gotta be better brands out there.. cause I'm thinking it's not only the type of soil I use, I think it has a lot to do with the seeds themselves..
what seeds do you guys use?
I tell you what tho.. american seed dark green zucchini seeds ([url]https://www.plantationproducts.com[/url]) - did awesome last year in my garden!
Last edited by Ruffsta on Wed Jan 26, 2011 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
I collect my seed from the plants in my garden, where seeds should be acquired unless bringing in new genetics. next would be friends seeds, followed by whatever I see that I want.
yeah I try to avoid shipping too - but with ebay you have no choice most of the time.
nobody I know is into gardening or seeds.. so I go to job lot, or a grocery store and harvest my own as I mentioned. like I said I'm new to gardening (wish my grandfather were still alive.. gardening was his thing, too bad I wasn't interested in it all when I was a kid), so late in the year last year I decided to start gardening - I didn't do too bad considering it was my first garden ever lol
I definitely want to improve for this year and future years.. I actually like gardening. too bad I wasn't into much sooner in life.
99.999% of what I use is either wild-collected or garden-collected open-pollinated seed. What I don't already grow, I trade for; I very rarely actually buy seeds, unless you count buying a fruit at the market and saving seeds out of it.
I have very high germination rates and I grow some pretty interesting stuff.
I like to trade and collect my own from my garden as well! But when I see a variety I want or something new that I'd like to try I order from Park Seeds. I have always felt they had good prices on the seeds and the shipping and I can honestly say that I must have at least a 99% germination rate if not 100%. I have been very satisfied with what I have bought from them. However as stated, nothing beats getting them right from your own back yard if you can.
I've ordered seeds from Park, Jung, HB Fields and others as well as saving my own garden seed. Rarely had any problems with any of them, including using some five year old seed. I think it's not the seed so much as how you care for it.
I am very happy with seeds from Tomato Growers Supply (tomatoes and peppers). I am not happy with seeds from Tomatofest (I have bought around two dozen from there).
Right now most of my seeds came from trades. I also have some saved from grocerystore vegetables (habanero peppers, butternut and spaghetti squash, big halloween pumpkin etc). Seed for sweetcorn and sugarsnap peas, radishes etc get purchaced locally.
Baker Creek/rareseeds
Tomato Growers
Tomato Fest
Ed Hume Seeds
Ted Taylor
Duck Creek (will this year)
Michigan Bulb
Park Seeds
Blooming Bulb (will this year)
Dixondale Farms (will this year)
Burpee
95% of my seeds are from my own plants and from trades. Sometimes I'll purchase veggie seeds at the local hardware store but nuthin fancy there...just the standards for .99 or so....
I've had great luck doing this. Love getting OP seeds from other gardeners.
This year I want to try some seed saving. I have never done it before. If I like the Mayiach peppers and the Biker Billy peppers that I have I plan on trying with those.
Does it make a difference if the seeds you harvest are hybrids or heirlooms? I raeally need to educate myself on this lol.
I try to order from different online suppliers and pick some seeds up from the local nursery. The health and genetic traits of the plants definitely depend on the quality of the seed.
Although you don't know what kind of genetics you are going to encounter, I would try to find the most reliable source. By reliable I mean, someone with a horticulture background.
Heirlooms may often be specific to a particular area. Grown there for many years, they have adapted and thru selection, are productive and healthy choices but they may not be widely adapted.
My experiences with heirlooms have not always panned out the way I have hoped. Most heirloom tomatoes are rated above 80 days-to-maturity. That is really pushing it here. A 6 or 8 week-old seedling set out after last frost may not mature fruit unless it is down in the 70 day and 60 day range.
I have, however, saved seed from one variety of tomato for about 20 years now. It does just fine in my garden and is a real favorite of my wife. That 1 tomato variety has grown to about a half dozen. I have also saved seed from a twisted-stem Asian mustard and also from a radish for about 20 years. A couple years ago, I started saving a couple of soybean cultivars and have had a pole bean heirloom for 6 or 7 years.
There are other open-pollinated radish and mustard varieties in my garden each year but I don't bother saving seed since allowing them to flower risks cross-pollination with the heirlooms that I already have. I did start saving a bok choy several years ago and now have 2! I will need to grow them for seed 1 at a time and just save enuf seed for 2 years. Actually, one is already a landrace and there's no reason to toss more genes into the pool.
Other than these few, I purchase seed but I will introduce a new pole bean this year and save its seed - beans are supposed to be self-pollinating. I suspect that I could save seed from the bush beans as well since beans are not usually hybrids, no matter how recent an introduction.
A successful year is important to me. I will have a number of hybrids in the garden. I appreciate their consistency and the disease-resistance many of them have bred into them. I bought seed from only 2 new-to-me outfits last year and had problems with the heirlooms I bought from both of them. One, the variety was fine but completely different than what was described. The other was a 0% germination in the greenhouse - a failure unmatched by any other seed source. I won't mention them but will order from at least one of them again.
Here are the rest of the companies I'll have seed from this year:
digitS wrote:My experiences with heirlooms have not always panned out the way I have hoped. Most heirloom tomatoes are rated above 80 days-to-maturity. That is really pushing it here. A 6 or 8 week-old seedling set out after last frost may not mature fruit unless it is down in the 70 day and 60 day range.
This has been my experience, too. Our growing season just isn't long enough for some of the heirloom varieties to succeed really well.
