Buying from local retailers is important, but if I can't get what I want from them, buying online is a very workable option. I have several vendors I like, because they offer small quantities for prices as low as fifty cents, and they take PayPal. I don't buy from Burpee online, because I can get their seeds locally, often cheaper than online and without the shipping cost.
Now, first of all, I don't buy hybrids. There is nothing wrong with hybrids. Hybrids offer disease resistance, robust plants and the best possible qualities from their parent plants. However, if you try growing seeds from hybrid plants, you don't know what you will get. The characteristics of the parents have been very carefully developed and combined, but the seeds they produce are a crap shoot.
I prefer to buy heirloom, open-pollinated seeds. These are seeds that have been developed over time through selective breeding, until they have the most desirable characteristics, and then grown year after year and handed down. An heirloom tomato grown this year will look and taste almost exactly like one grown fifty years ago did. Open pollinated just means plants that can be pollinated by another of their variety, or self-pollinated, and produce offspring roughly identical to the parent plant.
For me, it is important to support producers of heirloom seeds by buying their products in order to continue a line of traditional plants. Heirlooms help preserve genetic diversity and they allow seed saving by growers. Seed saving is important, because big corporations develop hybrids or GMOs and patent them, so that they virtually own the food supply and narrow diversity. To me, that's a bad thing. I'm not seed saving this year, but next year I hope to try it.
There are many reputable heirloom seed companies online and some, like the ones pictured, have excellent variety and low-price options available. I can personally vouch for them, having grow veggies from seeds I purchased on their sites.
Buying online can also be tricky and I will talk more about that in a moment.
Buying seeds on eBay can be really risky. I have several eBay vendors I do business with who are devoted heirloom seed growers and they are honest and reliable.
One problem with buying on eBay is that feedback has to be given within a month of purchase. If I buy seeds today, I won't know what I've got until next summer. Ripoff sellers may have 100% positive reviews because their seeds were delivered in a timely manner, but their seeds may not produce what you thought you were getting.
There are a couple of rules of thumb for buying online. First, remember the old adage "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is." There is no such thing as a blue watermelon, but you can order the seeds online through eBay and Amazon and probably others. Any number of vegetables and fruits in fantastic (read: nonexistent) colors are available as seeds online. Often, these seeds are offered for as little as fifty cents with a small shipping fee.
Second, check to see where the seeds will be shipped from. Those blue watermelon seeds come from China. I made the mistake of buying seeds from China through Amazon once. Apparently, shipping seeds from China to the United States is only quasi-legal at best. One package came labeled artificial flowers, and there were artificial flowers in the box. The seeds were in a tiny vial hidden in the packing material, leading me to believe the seller wanted to avoid applicable import inspections. Those seeds never germinated. The second order never came.
Also, some seeds ship from Eastern European countries. Don't. Just don't. The prices are low, and it doesn't seem like much, risking 99 cents for some bell peppers, but you're giving your credit card information to someone in China or Romania who is selling you blue watermelon seeds.
You can use PayPal, but remember, that email you get from PayPal with all the typos, wanting you to "click here to enter your user name and password" is someone who would love to clean out your bank account. Any transaction through PayPal should be completed at time of purchase.
Even buying from reputable, established seed companies, there will be some variation in heirloom seeds, since they have probably been grown by that seed grower for many decades under different conditions from those of another grower who started with the same seed stock.
For example, some people insist that the true Rutgers tomatoes have been lost. The Rutgers tomato was first introduced in the 1930s and became widely grown commercially as a canning tomato. After it fell out of popularity, a few farmers continued to grow it from their collected seeds. It is available from many seed sources, but it is unlikely that it is true to the original. The Rutgers was developed as a determinate tomato--meaning the seeds produced a bush that only reached a specific height and grew tomatoes that nearly all ripened at the same time for more economical harvesting. I bought Rutgers seeds last winter that were listed as and grew indeterminate--meaning the plants grew very tall and the tomatoes ripened throughout the season. While they weren't true to the Rutgers line, they did produce tomatoes well-suited to canning and making sauce, and I didn't really care if they were authentic or not, as long as they had the same quality characteristics as Rutgers.
Another example is the Aji Dulce pepper. It used to be a sweet pepper that looked similar to a Habanero. After decades of accidental cross-pollination, the Dulce peppers are sometimes quite hot. They still have the smokey, fruity flavor they were always prized for, but with unexpected heat.
Buying online still has advantages. There is a much wider selection available, the prices are often lower than buying seed packets from a big box store, and you can often get very cheap or free shipping. Besides, it's always fun getting a package in the mail.
Stephen
Now, first of all, I don't buy hybrids. There is nothing wrong with hybrids. Hybrids offer disease resistance, robust plants and the best possible qualities from their parent plants. However, if you try growing seeds from hybrid plants, you don't know what you will get. The characteristics of the parents have been very carefully developed and combined, but the seeds they produce are a crap shoot.
I prefer to buy heirloom, open-pollinated seeds. These are seeds that have been developed over time through selective breeding, until they have the most desirable characteristics, and then grown year after year and handed down. An heirloom tomato grown this year will look and taste almost exactly like one grown fifty years ago did. Open pollinated just means plants that can be pollinated by another of their variety, or self-pollinated, and produce offspring roughly identical to the parent plant.
For me, it is important to support producers of heirloom seeds by buying their products in order to continue a line of traditional plants. Heirlooms help preserve genetic diversity and they allow seed saving by growers. Seed saving is important, because big corporations develop hybrids or GMOs and patent them, so that they virtually own the food supply and narrow diversity. To me, that's a bad thing. I'm not seed saving this year, but next year I hope to try it.
There are many reputable heirloom seed companies online and some, like the ones pictured, have excellent variety and low-price options available. I can personally vouch for them, having grow veggies from seeds I purchased on their sites.
Buying online can also be tricky and I will talk more about that in a moment.
Buying seeds on eBay can be really risky. I have several eBay vendors I do business with who are devoted heirloom seed growers and they are honest and reliable.
One problem with buying on eBay is that feedback has to be given within a month of purchase. If I buy seeds today, I won't know what I've got until next summer. Ripoff sellers may have 100% positive reviews because their seeds were delivered in a timely manner, but their seeds may not produce what you thought you were getting.
There are a couple of rules of thumb for buying online. First, remember the old adage "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is." There is no such thing as a blue watermelon, but you can order the seeds online through eBay and Amazon and probably others. Any number of vegetables and fruits in fantastic (read: nonexistent) colors are available as seeds online. Often, these seeds are offered for as little as fifty cents with a small shipping fee.
Second, check to see where the seeds will be shipped from. Those blue watermelon seeds come from China. I made the mistake of buying seeds from China through Amazon once. Apparently, shipping seeds from China to the United States is only quasi-legal at best. One package came labeled artificial flowers, and there were artificial flowers in the box. The seeds were in a tiny vial hidden in the packing material, leading me to believe the seller wanted to avoid applicable import inspections. Those seeds never germinated. The second order never came.
Also, some seeds ship from Eastern European countries. Don't. Just don't. The prices are low, and it doesn't seem like much, risking 99 cents for some bell peppers, but you're giving your credit card information to someone in China or Romania who is selling you blue watermelon seeds.
You can use PayPal, but remember, that email you get from PayPal with all the typos, wanting you to "click here to enter your user name and password" is someone who would love to clean out your bank account. Any transaction through PayPal should be completed at time of purchase.
Even buying from reputable, established seed companies, there will be some variation in heirloom seeds, since they have probably been grown by that seed grower for many decades under different conditions from those of another grower who started with the same seed stock.
For example, some people insist that the true Rutgers tomatoes have been lost. The Rutgers tomato was first introduced in the 1930s and became widely grown commercially as a canning tomato. After it fell out of popularity, a few farmers continued to grow it from their collected seeds. It is available from many seed sources, but it is unlikely that it is true to the original. The Rutgers was developed as a determinate tomato--meaning the seeds produced a bush that only reached a specific height and grew tomatoes that nearly all ripened at the same time for more economical harvesting. I bought Rutgers seeds last winter that were listed as and grew indeterminate--meaning the plants grew very tall and the tomatoes ripened throughout the season. While they weren't true to the Rutgers line, they did produce tomatoes well-suited to canning and making sauce, and I didn't really care if they were authentic or not, as long as they had the same quality characteristics as Rutgers.
Another example is the Aji Dulce pepper. It used to be a sweet pepper that looked similar to a Habanero. After decades of accidental cross-pollination, the Dulce peppers are sometimes quite hot. They still have the smokey, fruity flavor they were always prized for, but with unexpected heat.
Buying online still has advantages. There is a much wider selection available, the prices are often lower than buying seed packets from a big box store, and you can often get very cheap or free shipping. Besides, it's always fun getting a package in the mail.
Stephen
Comments
Post a Comment