Seed Company Reviews!

Tis the season to be procuring seeds by the packet and getting ready for Spring-time planting. Well, at least in Pittsburgh it is. In Florida, where my parents emigrated, they're already setting out their tender seedlings for their first growing season.

Before I get started on how to start seeds inside and all the fun of that, I wanted to offer some thoughts on different seed companies you can order from.

The four companies I'll be talking about are Botanical Interests, Baker Creek Seed Company, Fedco Seed Company, and Burpee.

Let me start off by saying that you really can't go wrong with any of these four seed companies. It's really a matter of what you're looking for, and what's important to you in a seed company.  The only seeds that I recommend against buying are the off-brand $0.50 a pack ones you can find at the dollar store and places like that. Sometimes you can get amazing deals, but most of the time the seeds are poor quality, don't germinate, and there's no customer service involved.

First we have Botanical Interests.

 I LOVE Botanical Interests. I really do. I was introduced to them as a fledgling gardener by a horticulturally inclined friend and I'm so glad she did. Their seed packets are all beautiful. Little perfect works of art. And they're filled with information, not just on the front and back but also if you open them up they have tons of extra info inside, info like tips for getting the best germination rate and harvest, and how to preserve your harvest. Their website is also lovely. It's pretty easy to navigate, although it can be a little difficult if you tend to tear through websites like I do. They have a lot of information on their website, and it's a great reference. Their seed catalog comes out two or three times a year (to be honest I don't do a good job of keeping track, I mostly get really excited when it shows up) and it's equally lovely.

A little bit more about BI, they've been in business since 1995, they're a family owned company and they are RAPIDLY expanding. They now have over 600+ varieties of both edible and ornamental seeds, and they have a really great heirloom and organic selection as well. All of their seed is untreated and certified GMO Free.

One down side I will say to all of their beautiful art is that there aren't many pictures of what the plants really look like. So, even though I adore seeing the artistic renderings of them, and I don't have a really solid idea of what they look like in reality.

One of the reasons I love BI so very much is their customer service. When I sent out messages to all these companies to ask if there was anything they wanted to share, they were one of the first to get back to me. They're active on social media and very easy to get ahold of if you have questions or concerns. Also they partner with non-profits and schools and donate loads of seeds to community gardens, and what's not to love about a company that gives back?

Nitty Gritty: Selection and Price. They don't have the largest selection of these seed companies, but their selection is more than sufficient for most home gardeners. They only sell their seed packs in one size, so there's really no buying in bulk (although you could always contact them and ask if you need a bulk order, their customer service is baller).  Price wise they're a little more on the expensive side. However the price difference isn't extreme. According the information on it one packet of "California Wonder" heirloom organic seeds is enough for 30 plants when started indoors and costs $1.99

Bottom line: Botanical Interests is the first seed company I reccomend to new gardeners. They're becoming easier and easier to find in person (Rolliers in Mt. Lebanon carries them, as well as Giant Eagle Market Districts for Pittsburgh locals).

Up Next: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (Rareseeds.com)

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is a weird-plant lover's dream. They've only been in business since 1998, but in that time they've built an Amazing network of growers and seed adventurers the world over. They offer almost exclusively Heirloom seeds (yay) and have tons of organic options if that's your thing. All of their seeds are 100% gmo free. What's amazing is that they offer over 1,800 varieties of seeds from all over the globe, so if you want to grow something that none of your neighbors or friends have ever seen, this is the company for you.

Their customer service is also quite good. They got back to me very quickly when I contacted them. They offer two seed catalogs, one is the regular catalog that gets mailed to you if you request it on the website or buy seeds from them previously. It's a lovely seed catalog with lots of great images and more planting options than I know what to do with. And then there's the Whole Seed Catalog. The whole seed catalog will cost you about $8 + shipping but it's filled with almost every variety they carry, tons of articles, recipes, tips and wonderfulness. It's like a magazine, but all seeds all the time. Also, many seed companies send a bonus seed pack when you order, for BI it's a mixed lettuce, Baker Creek has sent me a variety, last year I got a lovely tomato called Gypsy that I adored and this year I got some sort of melon that I can't wait to try out. I don't know if they have one variety they send out all year or a bunch to pick from and they just randomly choose one, but I like it.

One of the main down sides to Baker Creek, and this is only after being so spoiled with Botanical Interests, is their seed packets are really hit or miss. Some of them have lovely photographs and art, some have nothing. Some have weird little drawings that look like something I did in middle school (I know, I'm throwing shade at a seed company). But, to be honest, with as many varieties as they have I suppose that a few are bound to slip through the cracks.

Nitty Gritty: They have the most impressive variety of any seed company I've seen. They're also on the more expensive side. Their California Wonder bell pepper seeds come in a packet of 25 seeds  for $2.50. Though they also offer a 1/4 ounce of seed for $7 (which is currently sold out).

Bottom Line: If you want something weird, or historic, or rare or unusual or you just want to try something new, I recommend them. Their seed always performs extremely well for me and I usually pick one or two new things from them every year to try out (because trying new things is the best part of gardening... well, other than the eating)

Third: Fedco Seeds

The thing to keep in mind about Fedco seeds is that they're not a company the way the other seed companies are, they're a co-op and they've been in business since 1978. They're based in Clinton Maine, and specialize in seeds for the North East climate. In addition to seeds they also offer bulbs, trees, tubers, and gardening supplies.

Their website can be a little hard to navigate if you're uncomfortable with online shopping or with using the internet. Their selections are only searchable by name, and basic varieties (beets vs. peppers). Their flower section is organized alphabetically, and you have to go into each description to learn about what the flower is. There aren't a lot of pictures on the website, some varieties don't have pictures at all. Their packaging is very no-frills. No art, no pictures, just the info you need.

Nitty Gritty: Their selection is solid, although not huge it's plenty of varieties, all proven to be good growers and producers for this climate. Their prices are pretty awesome too, for most varieties you can choose what quantity of seeds you want. For their King of the North Sweet Pepper (the closest to the California Wonder I could find) you can choose from between 1/4 g to 4g with a price ranging from $1.40 - $10.00 depending on quantity. (They say that there are aprox. 160 seeds per gram)

Bottom Line: This is my first year using Fedco seeds, so I can't tell you much about them from personal experience. What I can tell you is that their prices are excellent, their customer service is good, and that their seeds shipped quickly and even though I ordered from everyone on the first day, they were the first to arrive. However I do know quite a bit about them based on reputation and I can tell you that I've heard almost exclusively positive feed back. This is a seed company for garden nerds. If you know what you want and how to grow it and you want to support a cooperative of growers that offer only the best varieties for the North East, then this is your company.

And then there's Burpee

Here's the thing, you can't go wrong with any of these companies, and that includes Burpee. The company has been around since 1876 and they've been publishing their catalog since 1881. They have a really solid catalog and they're a HUGE company. Go into any big retalier with a garden center (Walmart, Target, Lowes, Homedepot...etc...) and you'll find Burpee seeds. Go into almost any hardware store and you're likely to find them. They're massive, they're inescapable. And you know what? They're good. I haven't had the same level of success from them that I have with BI and Baker Creek, but they're solid. They're also 100% non GMO and have a good selection of organic products. Bonus points: They're "Certified Land-fill Free" which they don't actually say what that

They're also fairly inexpensive. I'd be lying if I said I didnt end up with a packet or two of burpee seeds almost every time I go up to home depot (But I do really NEED to plant some daisies this year and it has nothing to do with the eye catching seed packet or low price tag).

Nitty Gritty: Their variety is pretty good, a wide range of plants that are market tested to be popular with consumers all over the country. Nothing too unusual, but enough variety to keep things interesting. The prices in store are a little different, their in store seed packets are smaller quantity, but you can buy a packet of 300 California Wonder Pepper seeds online for $7.00 which is a pretty good deal. 

Bottom Line: Burpee is a huge company. Their customer service isn't great. They never got back to me in my request for information for you all. There's nothing wrong with them, but there's nothing all that right with them either. I certainly buy their seeds and I pour over their catalog when it comes in the mail, but when it comes down to my yearly serious seed buying, I'd rather support a smaller independent company than Burpee.

So that's it, my seed company review. You can't go wrong with any of these companies, and I hope you'll give some of them a try this year! What's your favorite company?

Up next: The Pittsburgh Home and Garden Show 2016, and/or my amazing Succulent Chair!

RTDP: How to Read Seed Packets

Once you’ve procured your seeds, or while you are in the process of procuring your seeds you are going to want to know how to read the information contained on the seed packet. Seed packets are a wealth of information about the plant you’ll be growing.

I have a story for you about the importance of seed packets.

In 2013 I planted my first garden at our home. We bought the house in December of 2012 and I spent months meticulously planning every inch of my brand new raised beds. I knew from my research that it was generally a good idea to plant marigolds in one’s garden, they function as a natural pest deterrent and they look pretty. So I went onto Botanical Interests and picked a variety of marigold. I chose a variety that had pretty round flowers, but didn’t take the time to bother reading much about them. After all, I’m really good with plants, I know how big marigolds get.

The infamous marigolds.

I started the seeds in my little indoor greenhouse along with the rest of my seedlings for the year. Hardened them off, then planted them all over my garden. In early may they were already these cute perfect little marigold plants, all nice and compact with sweet little buds forming. But they didn’t stop growing. They kept growing. They produced tons of these big round luscious marigold, with a nice spicy marigold fragrance. I actually really liked these flowers and if you are interested in growing quite possibly the biggest marigolds EVER, I recommend them. (Botanical Interests Website) Unfortunately they were not what I’d had in mind. Instead of cute little compact plants that would fit comfortably into my garden plans, I ended up with giant bush-like beasts covered in flowers. They took over. They crowded out the tomatoes and the leafy greens, the swiss chard was a gonner. All because I didn’t read the seed packet. If you look carefully at the seed packet on the right you'll see that it clearly says " 2'-3' tall " and if I'd been paying attention I would've noticed that and not been so very confused by the size of the plants.

If you’re familiar with the test taking strategy “RTDQ” (Read The Damn Question) then you may also find RTDP (Read The Damn Packet) a useful gardening strategy.

Seed packets are a wealth of information. Not every packet has every piece of information, but they all will have most of it. To help you learn how to use these resources, I’ll be comparing different seed companies and showing you where to find different things so that hopefully you’ll be able to decode any seed packet you come across.

The information you’ll find is generally, but not limited to:

My favorite seed packet! It's so darn pretty

1- Common Name

This is what we generally call the plant.

2- Scientific Name

This is the binomial Latin version of the plant name, this is useful because this name is the same for your plant no matter where you are or what language the rest of the information is in. Plus it sounds super science-y.

3- Cultivar/ Variety

As I have learned many times over, one tomato is not the same as another variety of tomato, different varieties have different needs and produce different things.

4- Type of plant

Some plants such as tomatoes and green beans have different types of plants, Flowers have annual, pereniall and biennial. Green beans have pole vs. bush beans, tomatoes have indeterminate (IND) vs determinate (DET), for more info check my glossary page. Also sometimes you will find Organic seed, I’ll be discussing later the benefits of organic and whether or not they’re worth the extra cost. If any of these terms are confusing to you, please check out my Glossary page.

5- Weight of seed

How much seed do you have?

6- Price

How much does the seed cost?

7- Image of mature plant

What does the plant look like?

8- Seed company name

This is pretty self explanatory, who produced and packaged this seed?

9- Mature plant size

SUPER IMPORTANT, Learn from my fail.

10- Sun exposure

Does your seed need full sun, part sun, shade? If you’re a little unsure what the different requirements are check out the definitions on the Glossary page.

11- When to sow

Sometimes this is presented as a small map of the US with color coded planting days, sometimes it’s listed as days from last frost (See previous post about garden scheduling)

12-  How many days to germination

How long until your seeds first emerge from the soil.

13- How long until harvest, or bloom season

How long from germination to harvest or bloom. Some seed packets will say this is from transplant to harvest, not germination but it will state that. Remember: RTDP

14- Depth of planting

How deep to plant

15- Spacing and/or Thinning

How far apart to plant and then how far apart to thin your seedlings. More on this in a later post when we discuss growing plants from seed

16- Further description of plant

Tell me more! Tell me more!

17- Contact info for seed company

Just in case

18- Lot number and harvest year

This is really useful if you save seeds and can’t remember how many years you’ve been holding onto them.

19- Suggestions and bonus info

BONUS!

Let’s get some practice reading! 

This variety of poppy was popularized when it became the symbol for WWI memorials in England and later the VFW.

Not every seed packet has every piece of information, but they all have most of it. This one here is lacking both a description of the plant (They're big fluffy red poppies), Sun exposure, and the scientific name (Papaver rhoeas, if you're wondering). But it has most everything. It also has a good example of the when to sow map of the US, I find this to be a bit more general than I like, so I usually go by last frost date and count back. If your seed packed doesn't give you any specific information that you want, like the scientific name or optimum sowing day, just google it. Like I googled the scientific name just now. 

As a general rule it is safe to assume that if there is no sun exposure listed, and you are growing something for flowers or fruits (meaning something you eat with seeds inside, not just sweet things), that you should plant it in full sun. 

Let's do one more, I haven't broken down a veggie seed pack for you yet, so let's do some nice green beans.  This was a packet of seeds that I bought at a dollar store. They didn't germinate well. I'll be doing a much more in depth review of seed companies later but, SPOILER ALERT,  dollar store seeds usually suck. 

Didn't grow well, but for $0.59 it was worth a shot.

This is an awesome seed packet, the only information missing is what sort of sun exposure the beans need to grow (full sun, but beans can tolerate a bit of shade better than many other garden veggies can).  

That's about all there is to seed packet reading. Just, Read The Damn Packet (RTDP). And if you are confused by something, don't be afraid to look it up. Google is an amazing resource, but so are your favorite gardening books, friendly neighborhood gardeners and me! Feel free to write a comment or shoot me an email with questions.  I, like most gardeners, love talking about gardening and really welcome any opportunity to talk some one's ear off about plants. 

Next blog post: Seed company reviews- The good, the bad and the meh.

Procuring your plants and seeds and when (Planning your veggie garden Part 3)



Hyperbole and a Half memes are the best memes

Okay. You’ve decided what you’re going to plant. And you’ve decided where you’re going to plant it. So… where are all these plants coming from? And when do you have to get them?

Never fear. In this third and final installment of Planning Your Veggie Garden we will cover both of these topics. (I probably could’ve split this into two blog posts, but I didn’t.)

When do I need to do things?

I’m a planner. I like to know when I have to do things before I have to go out and do them. So let’s start with our growing calendar.

In much the same way that our current understanding of human history can be divided into BCE and CE eras with the turning point being 2016 years ago, your garden calendar can be divided into Weeks-Before-Last-Frost  and Weeks-After-Last-Frost.  In Pittsburgh our average last frost date is sometime around May 1st. I like to assume it’s May 1st because I’m an impatient gardener. Other, more reserved gardeners say around May 10th or Mother’s day, to be on the safe side.

For the sake of argument we’re going to say that May 1st is our last frost date, because it’s my blog and I say so.

Laying out your calendar is super easy. You can print out some pages from Google, or write them down on a piece of paper like I did in my journal. You’ll want to count back from the date of the last frost 2 weeks, 4 weeks,  6 weeks, and 8 weeks. Then you’ll also want to mark the week/day of last frost, and 2 weeks after.

I also like to include a “Before Planting” to-do list with my garden calendar.

This is a quick and dirty list of generally what you need to do around those times. Your seed packet will tell you this information, or should. And if not it’s easily available online. Next week’s post is going to be about reading seed packets.

For a more comprehensive list I highly recommend the Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardeners Handbook, it’s a great resource where you can plug and play your own last-frost date to customize it to your needs. It’s filled with amazing info and very user friendly. (Find on Amazon here: LINK)

Before Planting: (You can do a lot of this stuff when it’s still absurdly cold out)

Wash and sanitize pots

This is what the inside of my garden journal looks like

Procure Seeds and Germination mix

Clean and Prep tools

Plan Veggie garden

Fix anything that needs fixed around the garden

Order seeds

8 Weeks before Last Frost (3-15-16 in Pittsburgh)

Start tomato and eggplant seeds

Start very large gourd seeds*

6 weeks before Last Frost (3-29-16)

Start some pumpkin seeds *

Start marigold seeds

4 weeks before last Frost (4-13-16)

Sow Spinach

Sow Beets

Start Sunflowers *

Sow Cold-hardy crops

2 weeks before last Frost (4-27-16)

Sow Lettuce

Begin hardening off seedlings

Week of Last Frost (5-1-16)

Run around outside in your underwear

2 weeks after Last Frost (5-24-16)

Sow Green beans

Sow Zucchini/ Summer Squash

Sow Winter Squash

Sow Gourds

Plant transplants (Sometimes I do this earlier, if I’m feeling anxious, which I usually do, but not before the last frost)

(* Things marked with this are things that people disagree about whether you should start them inside or direct sow them. As a general rule if I can direct sow things into my garden I do, but I’m still experimenting to see what works better. If you're not sure try starting half your seeds indoors and direct sowing half of them and see what does better)

How and Where do I get these plants?

At this point people often wonder things like: Why do you sow some plants directly into your garden and start others indoors? Why do I start some plants myself? Can’t I just buy seedlings?

Why sow some directly and transplant others?

Starting seeds indoors is a way to extend your active growing season. In places where we don’t have a very long growing season (In Pittsburgh it’s about 171 days), we need as many growing days as we can get. You can do this through a number of different means, using cold frames, cold tunnels for your beds, and most simply, starting your seedlings indoors. Also it gives us gardeners something to do when it’s cold and grey outside.

Lots of seeds don’t need to be started inside Lettuces are an easy example. Don’t waste your money transplants, and don’t bother with all the work of starting seedlings indoors. Lettuces grow super well straight in the soil and actually hate being transplanted.

The best little greenhouse in Pittsburgh! (At least I think it is)

Starting your seeds indoors does have it’s own issues. You need the space, you need a set up so that your seedlings get warmth and light. You need to remember to keep them watered and keep the humidity up (I’ll be writing another post all about the particulars of seed starting inside in the very near future).

Once your seedlings have sprouted and are wee baby plants, you’ll also need to harden them off, which is basically toughening them up. In your little green house your seedlings have a super comfortable life, they’re kind of sissies. So it’s important to slowly get them used to life on the outside. Take them out for a few hours a day, starting in part sun, then slowly into full sun (if you do it too fast you can give them sunburn, which I’ve done to my tomatoes, it won’t kill them, but it will stunt their growth for a little while). Slowly leaving them out for longer and longer periods of time until eventually they’re strong, tough little plants ready to take on the hazards of the garden.

If this all sounds like a bit more work than you really want to  don’t panic. You can always go to a nursery, plant sale, or even a home-improvement store (spoiler alert: their plants tend to suck), and buy as many seedlings as you want for your garden. There are some plants (cucumbers and peppers specifically) that I seem to just be really bad at growing myself. I haven’t figured out why, I think it might be the light. Anyway, when I buy nice strong hearty seedlings from other growers they do much better.  Sometimes I think that if I could afford it I would do this instead of starting my own.

But who am I kidding? I love seed starting!

Although, I also love plant shopping. I tend to end up with a great number of unexpected plant adoptions in the spring and have to find space for them in the garden and around the house. The Phipps Mother’s day weekend plant sale is particularly difficult for me to resist and I highly recommend it to any gardeners who want a chance to shop around from a variety of amazing local growers all in one place.

Next week: How to read your seed packets.