Garden Seeds

The best places to buy garden seeds is the ones that are nearest to you. We talked yesterday about the importance of heirloom seeds but I failed to mention any places to purchase them.

Let us rectify that by giving you some good places to purchase seeds.

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

They are based out of Mineral,Va and the business grew out of a love affair with heirloom varieties and seed saving. The seed company has been in business since 1982. They have over 700 varieties available grown by small local farmers. They are GMO free with no plans to ever have any. They of course have seeds specialized for the Mid-Atlantic states.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

These guys started in Missouri in 1998. They have since added locations in Connecticut and California. Looking at there catalog and the description of the varieties is mouth watering to say the least. They now offer over 1300 varieties from over 70 different countries. They of course specialized in non-treated, non-hybrid,non-GMO, non-patented seeds.

Wyatt-Quarles Seeds

This company had been supplying seeds since 1881 in Raleigh North Carolina. They do not specialize in heirloom seeds per se, but they do offer good varieties that are accustomed to the Mid-Atlantic states. In a pinch if your saved seeds are bad or you want to try a new vegetable I have used them.

There are others out there, but these are the main places that I get seed from commercially. The easiest and cheapest thing to do is save seeds from what you grow or trade with neighbors. Depending on the vegetable and variety you need to apply proper pollination control to ensure that the seeds you saved are the same type.

The interesting thing is that take Cherokee Purple tomatoes for example. This is a pre 1890 heirloom seed that is rumored to be handed down from Cherokee Indians. Whether the story is true or not you want to make sure it breeds true because the taste is phenomenal.

I hope this helps out my readers and at least gives them three companies that I have dealt with that I am still dealing with because they lived up to my expectations.