Despite the heirloom boom starting at the end of last century, a number of
tomato types and other edibles I've mentioned will not be available from garden
centres, even as seed. A garden centre typically stocks a few varieties
guaranteed to sell. Growers of rare and unusual plants are a niche market,
typically catered to by a few seed specialists that carry a very wide range, and
plant lovers who trade at seed exchanges. The specialists can only really turn a
profit if they reach a wide enough customer base, and I suspect that said
heirloom boom was made possible mostly by the increasing number of internet
users. Therefore, pretty much all seed sellers listed have a website. They will
be listed by country, since, although seeds can be shipped around the world
these days, different countries have their own peculiarities when it comes to
importing and exporting seeds. I haven't done business with all of them; some
I've bought seeds from, others I've included for their interesting range of
seeds.
Why not start with the home base? Although the seed sellers listed use Dutch
and don't always translate to English, they can be useful sources. Selling rare
seeds in the Netherlands is a thankless task because most of the Dutch
population is well suited to the garden centre approach, being terrified of
making their garden look too different from the neighbour's. To enlighten these
horticultural ignorami, I've listed three amateurs (in the sense of: "dedicated
hobbyists") who offer, in small quantities and for a token amount of money,
seeds ranging from the ordinary to "so rare even the specialists don't have it".
The Netherlands is fairly laid-back about importing and exporting seeds, since
there is no fragile ecosystem here to protect from invasive species. In the
Netherlands and any other EU country, payment is best done by bank transfer; the
less secure methods of PayPal and credit card are also current.
This is the Dutch answer to Chiltern Seeds, although, being in the
Netherlands, it works together with Thompson & Morgan and sells seeds
from British, German and even Russian seed companies - especially tomato seeds
often come in German and Russian packets. It also sells seeds from
Cruydthoeck, a small Dutch company inspired by Chiltern Seeds,
which used to have its own catalogue (now treasured by me; this company
introduced me to my first heirloom tomato) but no longer sells directly, instead
using specialty shops like Vreeken's for distribution. Whatever seed didn't come
in packets is put by the owner and his crew into self-printed, laminated (to
keep the seeds viable) paper packets with a picture on the front and
instructions on the back. The webshop carries mostly seeds, but also tubers
(especially many types of potato), bulbs, a small but choice collection of
plants (mostly fruit and/or herbs, especially many types of strawberry and
grape) selected to do well in the Dutch soil and climate, growing sets for
various mushrooms, gardening supplies, and books. Having discovered that the
real shop is close to where I used to live, I preferred to go straight to the
physical location, which is smallish and yet chock full of different seeds,
divided into annuals, biennials/perennials, vegetables (as many heirlooms as the
shop owner can find), and smaller categories like conservatory plants and herbs,
the latter occupying its own little seed rack next to the shelves of cocopeat
bricks that I stock up on regularly. The shop owner has a soft spot for pumpkins
and squashes - there are more different types of pumpkin/squash seeds than of
any other vegetable - and though he mostly buys his seeds, he also finds time to
grow and improve strains himself. There may be another shop like this in the
Netherlands, but if so, I don't know about it.
This Friesian one-man seed company is strictly Dutch and doesn't have a
webshop, just an information page that formerly linked to a PDF seed catalogue.
Write to the address at the top of the webpage to request a catalogue: the
small, but quirky list of seeds and descriptions (like a slimmed-down version
of the Cruydthoeck catalogue) contains an order form and, for regular
customers, is sent at the beginning of every year. No PayPal or credit card
required: payment is by bank transfer or by sending bills in an envelope. (I've
had news, though, that seed cannot be sold to buyers outside the EU.) The seeds,
packed in ziplock bags and mailed in a jiffy envelope, are not very expensive,
and there is a discount for buying 30 or 50 seed packets at a time. The seller
grows most of his seeds himself, and takes a dry, no-nonsense approach: where
the descriptions in most seed catalogues extol the plant concerned, if a plant
is weedy, or the flowers too small, he will honestly say so, sometimes adding
things like "maybe it would do better in different soil" or "will die if left
out in the sun". JWP's Bloemzaden is famous within the small circle of
Dutch plant connoisseurs, but virtually unknown elsewhere, and sales are
declining as this circle decreases, so here's a plug for Dutch-speaking plant
lovers. The seed list is different each year and has included rarities like
white soapwort; a perennial much-branched sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus);
Lathyrus sativus var. albo-azureus, a chickling pea with white-blue flowers; a
Welsh poppy with a picotee edge (which sadly didn't come up as Welsh poppies
never germinate for me); and things that can usually be found only in British
seed shops, like yellow chamomile and poached egg plant. As he takes his seed
orders before the harvest begins, he asks that customers indicate plenty of
alternatives for any seeds he can't deliver, but I've been pretty lucky so far
in getting what I ordered.
The complete opposite of the previous entry, this is a mail order company
only, offering hardly any seeds, its catalogues filled with luscious,
too-flattering illustrations of a mostly unchanging selection, give or take a
few new introductions, of plants and bulbs chosen to appeal to a garden-centre
public. I ordered some fruit trees suitable for small gardens, which were sent
as practically bare-root plants, and a number of rare bulbs, with a small
toolbox as extra gift. Within the same year, I was spammed by five more
catalogues in various formats, one of them offering me a free digital camera if
I "order now". Maybe it's these free gifts that makes the plants and bulbs
themselves so overpriced. I appreciate Bakker for its lovely website and
easy-to-order plants, and its attempt to civilize the garden-centre crowd with
introductions like the rarely grown honeyberry (Lonicera edulis), and I have
fond childhood memories of leafing through its catalogues. But five catalogues
in six months is too much, and most of what's on offer can be bought more
cheaply elsewhere.
I've never ordered from this company, but looked it up as possible
alternative when Cruydthoeck stopped selling to end customers. At the
time it was just called De Bolderik and offered organically grown flower
and vegetable seeds. These days, the selection has shrunk down to Dutch
wildflowers and wildflower mixes, where the mixes sometimes include species not
offered separately. Included for anyone specifically looking for wildflower
seeds.
Cruydt-hoeck is back in business and online! Once a paper catalogue, then a
bulk seed distributor, it is now a website selling to both private buyers and
companies. The link above goes not to the main page (click on "home" to go
there), which has four languages (Dutch, English, German, French) to choose
from, but to the seed list for private gardeners, as the site is a bit confusing
to navigate. I do hope it fills up quickly with all the seeds the old catalogue
used to contain, as many are still missing in the webshop and, of the webshop
entries, some lack descriptions, and not every item can be ordered yet. The site
generally has little things to fix, like the confirmation mail for my account
(anyone who shops here must make an account, though it's possible to leave the
password empty) fusing the email address and the field "Password" together. The
seeds are at or slightly above the prices at Vreeken, and there are some
very exclusive species. Any order under 50 euro has 7.50 euro added for shipping
in the Netherlands; I don't know what the international rates are, or if there
are any countries they can't ship to (Thompson&Morgan, for instance, has
a long list of countries they can't ship to). Payment is by iDEAL (Dutch
telebanking system) or bank transfer. Seeds are promptly delivered in either
"commercial" jackets (picture, description, some germination info) or a labelled
standard Cruydt-hoeck packet with a pen-and-ink drawing of plants on the front,
inside a corrugated cardboard envelope, with invoice and cards offering
subscriptions to gardening magazines.
I was undecided whether to put this on the seed sellers page or in the list
of interesting sites on the next page, but it does sell seeds, however few
(clearly, I've been spoiled by all these exclusive seed sites, because it offers
enough kinds of seed to please the average Dutch gardener) and mainly of
exotics. However: its strength lies in sowing and gardening accessories. This is
the first Dutch seller I've found of woven plastic planters and flower pouches
in several shapes and sizes. I ordered with my usual lack of restraint, and paid
by bank transfer, the other two options being iDEAL (a Dutch intertelebanking
system) and PayPal. Delivery was very prompt, and as the seller was just having
a sale, I got a pruning knife as a gift. This is also the place to go to for
personalized gifts like seed packets with your own text printed on them.
The first hobbyist seed exchange page I ran into when trying to find all the
seeds that I'd run out of and that the seed shops were currently having to
restock. Although it's not so much an exchange page any more, since the site
owner has almost all the seeds she wants. Just as a sample of the kind of
rarities she saves seeds of: "Hypochoeris maculata variegata", the accompanying
picture showing what looks like a hawkweed with chocolate-splattered leaves. The
seed list is mostly flowering annuals and perennials with the odd, decorative
crop plant (one dwarf tomato, one red-leaved basil). Prices are (in 2009, this
may change!) 50 eurocents per tiny little folded square envelope of seed,
shipping depends on weight of total order. Because this is a hobbyist's page and
the seed list is part of sharing the good things in life, there is also a page
of sowing tips, listing the germination requirements for the plants she has
grown.
On hiatus as of 2011. Not only is the seed-collecting
taking too much time, but last year's unusually severe winter killed off a lot
of plants. Link left up for the sowing tips and links to other pages of interest
(the site's links page is in Dutch and can only be reached from the Dutch main
page, the link from the English page does not work).
Diana's mooie
moestuin (Diana's beautiful vegetable patch)
This is the second hobbyist page I've ordered seeds from, and as the title
implies, its scope is wider: edibles make up two-thirds of the seed list, which
is divided into flowering plants, tomatoes and their relatives, and other crop
plants. Even the flowering list contains a plant or two that is strictly
speaking a crop plant. Samples from each section: a wildly splashed and
bicoloured snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus "Torbay Rock"); tomato "Gogoshari
Striped" (although she grows far more peppers than tomatoes) and a white beet,
Beta vulgaris "Albina Ice". Pricing is 50 eurocents per seed packet and variable
shipping, as for the previous website (as of 2009, subject to change) and seeds
are in ziplock bags with small printed labels. As this website owner's second
hobby is cooking, the website has information both on sowing seeds and on
growing and preparing vegetables.
This site may go on hiatus, or have a significantly
reduced offer, as of 2013. Seed-collecting is taking time which the site owner
would rather spend on adding info to the website, so this site, too, will stay
up for its cultivation information.
Belevenissen
van een tuinkabouter
(Garden Gnome's
adventures)
The third and most elaborate hobbyist page, with a garden diary, tips &
tricks and a separate
webshop with as many categories as Vreeken's Zaden: this website
owner takes her mission to spread the gardening gospel very seriously. Samples
of the seeds she offers: Passiflora edulis "Albinia", Rubus erytrocaldus,
Jacaranda mimosifolia, Podreana ricasoleana, Coccinia grandis, Lactuca sativa
var. crispa "Limestone bibb", Lycopersicum lycopersicon "Pink cherry", Cosmos
sulphureus "Firework mix", Iris sanguinea "Kamayama". Although the informative
part of the website has separate Dutch and English pages, the webshop is
bilingual. Seeds are 25 eurocents per packet plus variable shipping (as above:
situation in 2009, subject to change), and the packet might be very small, maybe
two seeds if the seeds are big, but the seeds are in a folded little cellophane
envelope taped to a piece of paper on which is printed a picture of the plant
and some information, so I know what to do with the seed when it arrives. That
there are few seeds as compared to the huge packets bought in seed shops isn't a
problem to me, as these are "sample" quantities, enough to see if I can even get
a particular plant to grow, and said huge packets are often far too big for
Dutch gardens and leave me with a lot of surplus seed moping in the packet while
slowly losing its viability - what a waste! I went on such a shopping spree that
the webshop balked, but fortunately I'd collected the plant names I wanted in a
text file, and was able to mail the list directly to the website owner. Payment
is by PayPal if ordering through the webshop, by bank transfer otherwise.
Shoppers are urged to read the instructions first, which are here
(Dutch version) and here
(English version).
Strictly speaking: England. Gardening is very serious business in England,
and the English are prepared to fork out for their hobby. Hence, seeds are more
expensive in the UK, but much more different varieties are available to cater to
many more tastes. The English don't grow "snapdragons, mixed"; they grow tall
snapdragons, compact snapdragons, red snapdragons, snapdragons in pastel shades,
splashed and spotted snapdragons, chocolate-leaved snapdragons, and they will
actually take cuttings from snapdragon plants. So, English seed companies are
magnets to avid gardeners. Fortunately seeds are readily shipped abroad
(although plant plugs are not); England is less happy about seed and plant
imports. Payment can be a bother; credit cards are fine, but because the UK does
not use the euro, bank transfers to this EU country (ie. legally, there should
be no transfer costs) end up getting transfer costs charged to the payer or the
receiver or both, so the only options left are PayPal or sending money in an
envelope. Fortunately, both Chiltern Seeds and Secret Seeds
accepted the former.
Since the English are such committed gardeners, some collect and sell rare
seeds on eBay: a search there will turn up real treasures. I recommend the
seller twilightgardenseeds, who sells various mixes containing rare
cultivars, but there are many others.
Known for its text-only catalogue where glowing descriptions take the place
of pictures, this seed company has a huge collection: Aquilegias alone cover
several pages. Included are run-of-the-mill seeds like the usual delphiniums,
hollyhocks, sweet peas & whatnot, and species from all continents; one
catalogue, I think in 2008, specifically featured a "Chili collection", and
there is a large section on all the different types of eucalyptus categorized by
hardiness. These days, there is a webshop adding illustrations to the
descriptions. Most seeds by far are of decorative plants: flowers, shrubs,
trees, of which some of course may have edible parts; but there is a separate
section for herbs and vegetables which is similarly extensive, containing more
kinds of basil than you can shake a stick at, yet still they manage to add a
basil to the decorative plants section. The vegs and herbs section is now in a
separate catalogue because people kept missing it, stuck as it was at a booklet
too full of pages to finish reading in one day. A great favourite with customers
are the lottery mixes: last year's seeds mixed together and put in packets for
people who like surprises. Chiltern Seeds will accept whatever form of
payment is possible for UK residents - forms which, due to currency matters, are
impossible or impractical for residents of other EU countries - and also credit
cards and PayPal, and puts its seeds in plain white paper packets (very
environmentally friendly!) on which is printed the plant name and sometimes (as
for seeds which need to be sown immediately on arrival) sowing instructions.
Seeds requiring extra protection are folded into cellophane or bubble-wrap, and
the packets together are wrapped in plastic bags and shipped in cardboard boxes.
This was the first UK-based company I've ever ordered seeds from, but now that
I've tried some others, I must say Chiltern Seeds gives me a lot of seeds
for my money, and puts a warning in the catalogue for any seeds too scarce to
give more than a pinch of. "Generous packets" is what they call it, and that's
no exaggeration.
Ordering through the website usually goes without problems, but I did run
into a hitch - something to do with a cookie expiry time, I think - when I went
absolutely bananas and ordered enough seeds to provide a small continent with
plants, and ended up having to split the order in three. Deleting all cookies
and starting over would probably have been the right thing to do, but instead I
mailed the company asking them to merge the three orders, which they did.
To quote the website: "We offer an ever changing selection of rare and
unusual plants to keen gardeners and nurseries all over the world - there are
now well over 1,300 species to choose from. With the exception of a few exotics,
most of our seeds are produced from our own organically grown stock plants." The
illustrated online catalogue replaces the printed one, which was, the last time
I received it, much smaller than Chiltern's, but also had much rarer
plants. Their range seems to have expanded (hard to say beause it's already so
much bigger than I'm used to) but the essential difference remains that their
main rival has the widest selection and they have the plants that are hardest to
get: for instance (but this one was always sold out when I looked) a white
variety (pale yellow, really) of the common dandelion. They do have herbs and
vegetables, but more to offer a complete range of seeds for garden and
veggie patch, because the edibles are not so special. (Note: their range of
vegetable seeds has greatly expanded since I wrote this.) As an extra, they have
gardening books from authors like Karen Platt. Instead of lottery mixes, they
have clearance sales at the end of the year, and bulk discounts. Needless to
say, I've spent heaps of money on either company. Seeds are sometimes in ziplock
bags, but mostly in folded cellophane envelopes, with stickers showing the
plant's name and when to sow it, and the whole order is mailed in a jiffy
envelope. As above, they accept credit cards and PayPal from unfortunate non-UK
residents like me.
This is another webshop I've managed to lock up in an ordering frenzy,
although the webshop has been redesigned since then. It would help not to order
60+ seeds in one session...
Thompson & Morgan
(UK customers)
My first experience with this company was purchasing two of its
luscious-looking, good-enough-to-eat catalogues from Vreeken Zaden, who
also carries most of their seeds and will place orders for any others on the
customer's behalf. Real flowers look dull and boring beside the photographs that
these catalogues are filled with. Offering a (compared to the two companies
above) restricted range of seeds, plants and tubers for both flowering plants
and vegetables, as well as all kinds of garden gadgets like the flower pouches,
Thompson & Morgan is the much superior UK equivalent of Bakker.
Its customers, being much more committed than those of Bakker, not only
play the role of consumer but also put something back into the company when they
send seeds of whatever interesting mutation pops up in their garden; a number of
T&M introductions, like the green-flowered poppy, came from customers.
Wanting to order a few rarities, I found that T&M doesn't accept PayPal and
only accepts cheques or credit card. The seeds were sent in big packets wrapped
in an envelope with a huge computer printout of my order. I also found that
non-UK customers cannot order via the UK page, which contains some items
(notably plants) that are not shipped abroad, hence the second URL.
How long this company has been around I don't know, but Google turned up, one
day, what seemed to be a rival of Secret Seeds offering an even smaller
range of even more exclusive plants - and note that "smaller range" still means
much, much more than what's commercially available where I live. Where Secret
Seeds goes for rarities, though, Plants of distinction goes for the
superior cottage garden flower: I am guessing its selection criteria to be
"would this look right in a T&M catalogue?" Some highlights: a green-flowered
alstroemeria; a salmon-coloured zinnia; a marigold with white petals, red
underneath. I haven't bought seed from this company yet, but can tell from
browsing the webshop that distinction comes at a price.
One niggle, though; this company, Thompson&Morgan, and even
Vreeken offer "patriotic" seeds: orange for the Dutch, red-white-blue
(found in the flags of many other countries, by the way) for the Dutch and
British. Not only does the chauvinist, war-enabling concept of "patriotism" irk
me, but the mix offered in the 2011 catalogue ("Sweet Pea Rule Brittannia")
doesn't even cover it: the red-white-blue sweet pea mix is in fact
magenta-white-purple - as is T&M's "Flying the Flag" mix. Hm.
Possibly in an attempt to be cheaper than the average English seed company,
but certainly attempting to waste less seed (generous packets are wonderful, but
sometimes only very little seed is needed) is this no-frills mail-order company
with an all-text website offering seeds of a dazzling number of species both
decorative and edible, either per weight or per number of seeds. That I ended up
paying 2 pounds for a packet of 5 tomato seeds (but: of the rarely found
"Czech's Excellent Yellow") shows that even allowing orders in small quantities
doesn't bring the price down very much, but the assortment is so comprehensive
that this is a good place to shop for any rare variety, and I bought
hard-to-find cucumber seed here before Solana Seeds started accepting
PayPal. Seed is packed in stiff paper folded and taped together and labelled
with pen, and sent in an envelope; the packets are so small and flat that I
don't worry about them being damaged in transit. Payment is by bank transfer or
foreign draft, no credit cards. The seller accepts PayPal; the site explains how
to order when using PayPal.
This site seems to be undergoing an overhaul, with most
links being dead, which is unsurprising as they refer to seed lists from
1998.
This is a non-profit labour of love. As it states:
We are a bit different from other places you might get seed from. We also
grow these veg for our own use at home, so we really know how they grow & how
they taste.
And we only offer what we know is really good, rather than listing lots of
different varieties just for the sake of it. But most importantly, everything
here has been chosen - from hundreds of trials - for a particular reason , which
we try to explain in the description.
And that sums it up! The number of varieties offered may seem meagre, but
each and every variety is a gem, and often, the kind of variety not found
elsewhere. Since EU regulations - but wait, they say it better:
In the EU, there is now a list of 'official' vegetable varieties. Seed
that is not on the list cannot be 'sold' to the 'public' (even though it is
perfectly legal to grow it!). To keep something on the list costs thousands of
pounds each year, so it's only worthwhile to 'keep listed' varieties that sell
in bulk to farmers, who have very different needs to home growers - a farmer
wants their plants to respond to precise chemical inputs, fruit all at once and
be tough to stand up to transport and packaging. You on the other hand, want
tender vegetables produced over a long season, even during variable years.
Hundreds of thousands of old heirloom varieties (the results of about
eleven thousand years of plant breeding by our ancestors) are being lost
forever, due to some rather poorly drafted EU legislation. This seems a little
foolish. To us, what is important is that more people get to grow these plants
(which otherwise would become extinct). So. . . . (and this is the small print)
when you request seed, you are also requesting membership of our seed club: 1p
of your order pays for a years membership of The Real Seed Club. We then deal
with your seed request as a member - so we are not dealing with the
'public'.
So, buying seed involves becoming a "member", although membership is more
than a mere formality: members are informed of new varieties and their input is
welcomed. Moreover, buyers are encouraged to save their own seeds, although
asked to please not hand over these seeds to commercial seed-growers because of
"biopiracy": large companies patenting a variety to get exclusive selling
rights. As well as tried-and-true heirlooms, the site owners offer new varieties
they've developed or discovered on their own, like an extraordinarily prolific
"white volunteer" courgette; and when someone gives them an almost-forgotten
heirloom, like the outdoor cucumber "Tamra", they add it to the catalogue to
ensure its survival. Despite there being few varieties, I still found myself
placing a hefty order, which, as the postal service on the European continent
(ie. not just the Netherlands) can be slow and lose stuff, was sent by
registered mail. Payment by credit card is accepted, and seeds are mailed in
brown paper bags with description and cultivation/seed-saving instructions
printed on them. Seeds are mailed only within the EU and countries that have
customs agreements with the EU, and emphatically NOT TO THE USA, but the site
lists three alternative seed sites for countries it can't send seeds to.
The rest of the European Union (countries that are legally bound to accept
bank transfers without charging transfer costs) would be, in my case, Germany,
France and, when Les Délices du Potager still had a webstore on
eBay, Belgium. The EU, whose policies are, after all, shaped by business
interests, is cracking down on heirloom varieties, with both France and Germany
taking legal action against, or putting legal constraints on, the sale of tomato
seeds. (Les Délices du Potager, a seller of heirloom vegetable
seeds, is still in business as far as I know, but no longer online. To anyone
living in Belgium who has the address, I recommend it.) Like the Netherlands,
the EU is fairly relaxed about seed import and export, especially between member
countries, as long as it doesn't hurt agro-industrial interests.
Non-UK seed sellers on eBay tend to sell edible stuff. The Dutch (but located
in Spain) seller exoticaseeds has a limited but important selection: this
is the only place I know of to get fresh acerola seed, and the latest Spanish
tomato discoveries. The German (but located in Greece) seller
griechische_pflanzen*samen sells seed of various cucurbits, tomatoes and
peppers, including sweet pepper "Hungarian Black Heart" and tomato "Braune
Pflaume". Another German seller, in Germany, hhpe, sells heirloom tomato
seeds (including the hard-to-find Czech's Excellent) specifically to preserve
heirlooms.
fesaja-versand: exotische
Saatgut-Raritäten & Pflanzen aus aller Welt
I used to know this seller as Cofusi's Saatgut on eBay before the
webstore was closed and the new webshop was opened. What did I buy here: tomato
seeds, related seeds (tomatillo, small tree tomato) and a bag of perlite. The
webshop sells "warm weather" plants, which covers both exotics and the many
tomato types listed, and supplies for these plants, like perlite to germinate
seeds in, growlamps, and heating mats. At the time, I hung drooling over its
tomato listing, each name accompanied by a picture of at least one whole tomato
and one cut in two lying against a ruler to show the size. Later, I also surfed
through the pepper (hot types only) and exotics lists. This is the site where I
first ran into the ridiculous rule that tomato types without a certain seal of
approval can only be sold as "grow for decoration only". But, as the seller
warned: prolonged exposure to these tomatoes can lead to dissatisfaction with
supermarket tomatoes! Nudge nudge, wink wink. This, in its eBay webstore days,
was the closest-to-home source of tomato seed before I discovered Vreeken's
Zaden and Tomatenhahm. Seeds are sent in stickered ziplock bags with
cultivation instructions, payment is by bank transfer, PayPal or any other
alternative that doesn't cost the seller. The site is completely in German and
includes a FAQ on how to germinate seeds of various exotics.
A bilingual German/English website. Quoting its own description: "Magic
Garden Seeds is a small company based in Bavaria Germany, specialized in
ethnobotanical seeds, rare and unusual plants. We deliver seed worldwide. We
sell only open-pollinated (non-hybrid) varieties (heirloom seeds). That means,
you can save the seeds year after year." Not terribly many seeds, an heirloom
tomato or two, but wat better place to buy mandrake, belladonna and all the
stuff witches used to smoke? It also offers all the seeds you need for a simple
yet interesting vegetable patch, such as pignut, wild rocket, purple carrot and
welsh onion. Seeds are sent in ziplock bags big enough for the label plus
instructions to fit inside. Credit cards are accepted, sending money by mail is
an option.
This site used to be hosted by Lycos before moving to new, almost ad-free
(ads appear when licking a dead link) webspace. The direct link to the
subsidiary list of available tomatoes and other vegetables, handled by Manfred
Hahm-Hartmann and known as Tomatenhahm, is now here. When I first ran
into these two combined sites, the number of tomato varieties listed on
Tomatenhahm was 600; now, four years later, it's 1000. Reinhard Kraft,
passionate tomato grower, seed collector and breeder of new or improved
varieties, is known on either side of the Atlantic, and just as he grows the
newest strains developed by Brad Gates, so his own "Reinhard's Goldkirsche" is
popping up in American webshops. On the side, he grows grapes and unusual and/or
heirloom cucurbits, carrots, potatoes, pulses, and relatives of the tomato like
eggplants, hot and sweet peppers, and the many different types and varieties of
physalis and garden huckleberry. He must have acres and acres of greenhouses and
fields to grow all these crops in. His website is huge, because it has a photo
gallery of all tomato varieties he grows plus a number of his other crops. The
site is completely in German: the links section has links to German tomato pages
and other sites that sell heirloom seeds. To order anything from
Tomatenhahm, send an email to Manfred Hahm-Hartmann listing the seeds you
want, and he will mail back shipping costs and payment details. Living in the
country right next door, I paid by bank transfer. Like the Dutch hobbyist pages
above (but then, isn't this a monstrously out-of-hand hobby?) seeds are 50 cents
per small packet. The packets are folded squares of paper taped to a letter and
sent in an envelope, they really are little seed samples.
Based in France, this site that sells seeds from literally all over the world
is in English, French, German and Spanish. I haven't bought anything here, I've
just browsed the beyond-unbelievable selection. The master list is broken up
into lists per environment ("Arctic Native Plant Seed List") and per plant
family ("Araucariaceae"), of which the site honestly states that not all seeds
are available, or would be viable and come true to form. The seeds are expensive
and the online catalogue is all text, but that's because there are just so
many seeds; by now, separate pages of photographs have been added to various
sub-lists to give an idea of the plants without cluttering up the lists
themselves. The site accepts all form of payment, to quote: "Credit-card,
PayPal, cheques, bank transfers". As said, I haven't bought anything here yet,
but surely that's just a matter of time.
I had to include this Swedish site, which sells mostly tomato seed and some
other herbs and vegetables, but only the tomato page has an English version,
because all tomatoes are grown outside (yes, in Sweden) without artificial
fertilizers or pesticides. Hence, this is a good site to check for suitable
outdoor varieties in cooler climates. The seller accepts only money by mail.
This originally German seed growing company has offices in Germany, the UK,
the US and Japan, and a website in German and English. It carries only
perennials and introduces a few new varieties every year. The site, although a
bit annoying to navigate sometimes, breathes a professionality that is almost
intimidating. Although I haven't bought anything there and may not do so for a
while, it has some very exclusive cultivars, and, probably because of its US
branch, is well acquainted with the Phytosanitary Certificate.
I ran into this multilingual (English, German, French, Spanish) site just as
it was having a sale - certain varieties for 99 eurocents each - and had a ball.
Normal prices are steeper: generally 3.99 euro and upwards. The site owner must
be living in a warm country, because the plants listed are tropicals,
subtropicals, xerophytes, Australian plants, South African plants, plants of the
Canary Isles, cold-weather palms etc., you get the picture. When I think of the
tropics I think of fruits, and sure enough there were three Annona species and
several guavas. The selection is really quite large and includes plants for
cooler climates. The site accepts credit card, PayPal, bank transfer or, if all
else fails, money in an envelope. The site states: "There is no minimum order
value, however orders below E 20.00 (excl. packing and shipping costs) are
charged with a E 5.00 markup for small-volume purchases." Seeds can be sent by
normal or registered mail. What I got was square cellophane packets, covered
with big paper labels giving the plant's Latin name and genus, taped shut with
Scotch, containing unlabeled (ergo, easily reused) ziplock bags with seeds, the
packets themselves bundled into big ziplock bags for added protection, and the
whole order in a jiffy envelope with the invoice and a few plant postcards.
Possibly because it was a sale and the seller was presumably cleaning out old
supplies, each packet contained more seeds than the label said.
The United States of America is the country of mail-order. It is also the
country of crazy. This means that while buying seeds online is the natural thing
to do, and shipping out of the country is generally OK, any seed shipment into
the US, or even from one state to another, is treated like an envelope of
anthrax, and the buyer may well receive, instead of seeds, a letter stating that
the goods were confiscated for lack of a Phytosanitary Certificate. This applies
even to tomato seeds, because we all know that tomatoes are dangerously invasive
man-eating weeds that spread deadly diseases through their seeds.
(A few years after making this page I found that two of the seed companies
listed below don't accept international orders, so shipping out is no longer OK
either. Although, to be fair, that is probably due to the crazy import
attitudes of other countries.)
What this means is that US buyers who order from abroad and don't want to pay
extra for a fancy piece of paper are screwed. Small amounts of seed in
innocent-looking envelopes usually slip through. US-based seed companies
generally don't take responsibility for confiscated seeds, and I can't blame
them. They will tend to put a warning on their site about the states they can
and can't send seeds to. Seed companies outside the US that know about its seed
paranoia may put up similar warnings.
The US is also credit card country: a credit card or a PayPal account is
highly recommended.
TomatoFest Organic Heirloom Tomato
Seeds
I bookmarked this site of tomato seed growers/sellers for the fact that their
seeds are ecologically grown. They carry less tomato varieties than
Tomatenhahm, which is still an awful lot of varieties, and will welcome
anything new, say, another cold-resistant high producer from Eastern Europe or
an old heirloom newly discovered on a farm somewhere, to share the bounty with
their customers. For offline browsing, they have a PDF catalogue. Seed costs on
average 2 to 3 dollars the packet, more for rare varieties, and is sent in large
labelled packets in a jiffy envelope. They accept credit cards and PayPal.
Seedman.com - seeds from around the
world
I'm listing this site because it now incorporates Rachel's seed supplies, a site for
tomato and pepper seeds that I loved to browse when I was still wrapping my head
around the huge numbers of heirloom tomatoes available and trying to learn all
the names. The larger site sells all sorts of seeds, and I believe it was on
this site that I first read a rant about the paranoia against "invasive" plants
(not restricted to the US, unfortunately) resulting in the outlawing of even
native species and the misapplication of herbicides, but I can't find it.
Although I haven't bought anything from them, the site is large and interesting
enough to list. Accepts credit cards and PayPal. However (I don't know if this
is a recent change), only ships to the USA and Canada.
This webshop specializes in tropical fruits and is based in California, where
growers have a sporting chance of getting their tropicals to fruit. It includes
fruiting plants for temperate zones, various vegs including several types of
quinoa, and a nice collection of wild and heirloom tomatoes, some of which are
novelties or rarities not found elsewhere. With a description and photograph of
all plants it sells seeds of, it is highly educational, not to mention that
browsing it makes me hungry. If you're looking for rose apple, breadfruit or
mangosteen, this is the site to visit, but of course they also have many
different palms, passion fruits and bananas. Accepts credit cards, PayPal, money
orders and cheques or money by mail. Seeds are sent in stickered ziplock bags in
jiffy envelopes.
What a find! Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is to the USA what The Real
Seed Catalogue is to the UK, only with a wide range of seeds on order: 1400+
varieties, according to the website. An online catalogue review tells me that
they've been in business for some 8 years now (that means, at least since the
turn of the century) and have the most beautifully illustrated
seed-order-inspiring catalogue ever. Hm. I've since downloaded the catalogue in
PDF form and although it does have a mouthwatering list, with piccies, of garden
fruit and veggies, it also has people posing with said fruit and veggies,
usually in cowboy outfit but one in a striped prison suit ...? In true American
style - I remember something similarly silly being done with the boxes of the
otherwise excellent "Celestial Seasonings" herbal teas - the catalogue makers
seem to think they should add an inspirational quote every few pages, like a
line from Benjamin Franklin or something on the Christian way of life.
Off-putting. But the first time I saw the site, I didn't know about any
catalogue and was just overwhelmed with, notably, the hard-to-find varieties of
courgettes. I ordered with my usual lack of restraint, paid presumably by credit
card (I can't find any page about forms of payment accepted, and don't remember
what option I chose on the checkout page) and received an envelope with large,
prettily printed seed packets.
What makes this site like The Real Seed Catalogue is its emphatic
commitment to biodiversity, preserving heirlooms, and rejecting genetically
manipulated seeds. But where The Real Seed Catalogue is the work of a
small group of people, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has a blog and a forum
and holds several big heirloom-related events a year, complete with country
band, that sound vaguely like nationalist rallies ("Come, proud Americans, save
your heirlooms"). Fortunately, all the yippee-ya-hoo doesn't mean hostility to
anything "un-American": the news page proudly announced some new tomato
introductions from the former Soviet Union. And it does have rare seeds. Very
rare seeds. Of heirlooms that are as good as, or even better than, F1 hybrids.
Amishland Heirloom Rare Veggie &
Fruits Seeds
I had doubts on whether to include this site, since it sang of the
magnificent heirloom heritage of America, and anything that even hints at
nationalism sets my teeth on edge. (And there are US seed-seller websites that
assume every websurfer is a true-blue Stetson-wearing American about to burst
into "The Star-Spangled Banner". I've never seen that attitude on Europe-based
websites.) Fortunately, it's more enthusiasm for rare seed varieties than an
attempt to make random visitors salute the American flag, and that same
enthusiasm is extended to valuable varieties from as far away as Japan. Why it
deserves a place here: i. all seeds are certified organic simply because the
site owner grows them personally; ii. varieties vary from rare-ish to very, very
rare; iii. the site owner includes as much information and history about each
variety as possible. The site offers mainly tomato seeds, but also peppers,
other vegs, and easy-to-grow flowers. The seeds have a fixed price, and PayPal
is accepted - in fact, when I placed my order, all I had to do was log into
PayPal and pay the invoice, generated as automatically as on eBay. My order
arrived as seed packaged in plastic bags wrapped around coloured cardboard
rectangles with the company's address and URL printed on it, in a big jiffy
envelope. The site is clearly popular, as varieties can get sold out very
quickly.
Looking for a rare tomato that I'd managed to kill all the seedlings of
again, I ran into yet another site dedicated to selling non-GMO, non-F1 heirloom
seeds. One of its products is a seed-saving kit! The site owners grow as many
herbs and vegetables, plus a few flowers for decoration, as they can fit on
their seven acres of land. Don't expect the astronomical range of Baker Creek
Heirloom Seeds, but this is where I found a turnip grown for its leaves,
some bean varieties that I'd never heard of and the stars of the site, the
tomatoes: Osburn Oxheart, anyone? Tartar from Mongolstan? Goccia di Lemoine? The
site even offers what looks like "Oranje van Goeijenbier", a famously prolific
Dutch cherry tomato. An interesting site to surf. Unfortunately surf it is all
I can do, since due to hassles at Customs over seeds, they sell only within US
territory (which includes part of Samoa), Canada and Mexico. For the lucky
residents of these countries: PayPal and credit card accepted.
The website, which looks like a combination of blog and small webshop,
offers, in its own words, "Great Seeds in Inexpensive Sample Size Packets".
Possibly because of its hybrid format, or the fact that it has a very amateur
feel to it - but in a good sense: the kind of small backyard gardener that keeps
heirlooms alive - the main page starts with recommendations to set the
prospective buyer's mind at ease. The page of tomato seeds also sets my mind at
ease by specifying that these are home-produced, non-GMO, open-pollinated seeds.
The link above opens the tomato page; other pages can be reached from the column
of links to the right.
My main interest was the tomatoes, and some unique toms are to be found here,
but peppers, squash, other vegetables and flowers are also on offer. I paid
$1.25 a packet for Cherokee Green Grape, Chyornyi Prince (the original Black
Prince from Russia) and Rozovyi Flamingo. The site accepts credit cards, PayPal
and money orders, and says this upfront on the blog-like site, so I don't have
to - as on some sites - go through a mock checkout process just to see what
kinds of payment are asked for.
As always, I found this site looking for rare tomatoes. It boasts over 700
kinds of tomato in its online catalog, but over 2100 kinds of hot pepper! So
many ways to burn one's mouth... Seriously, though, this site has all a veggie
garden could need, and I used it to order some Japanese cucumbers, carrots etc.
The seeds are non-GMO, and for the extra environment-conscious, are offered
treated or untreated. Payment by PayPal, credit card, cheque, money order or
Western Union Transfer. The seeds I ordered arrived in big printed paper
packets; I don't remember if in a jiffy bag, as they were dropped in the
mailbox at the same time as the TradeWindsFruit order, which contained
similar printed paper packets alongside the usual stickered ziplock bags. The
site is as informative as possible, offering not only cultivation and container
gardening instructions but even a world database to show the country of origin
for its hot pepper collection.
There's little to say about Canada except that it uses Canadian dollars and
is slightly less crazy about imports than the US. That's to say, I haven't heard
of seed being confiscated at the border. But when, late last century, I sent a
chocolate letter E to someone in Canada, it arrived looking like an F because
some customs officials had a jolly time chipping bits off it to test for
diseases transmitted through dairy products. So there is a certain paranoia
about imports. Luckily for non-Canadians, there's no restriction on exports.
A bilingual French/English Canadian webshop that sells mainly vegetable
heirlooms - including four pages of tomatoes - and some flowers, herbs and
exotics. For warm-climate plants like tomatoes, cucumbers and melons, it says
which varieties are most likely to succeed in cool wet summers, and it carries
the tomato varieties ending in "-bec" (Canabec, Rosabec) bred specifically
for the Quebec climate. This is the first shop I found to sell the three kinds
of round cucumber - Lemon, Crystal Apple and Richmond Green Apple - and
get the names right. At the time, unfortunately, Solana Seeds didn't
accept PayPal. It does now, so I had a whale of a time ordering mostly cucumbers
and tomatoes. Prices are around two dollars (Canadian!) for most tomatoes and
three dollars for "high purity" seeds (flowers were bagged to prevent
cross-pollination). Seeds are sent in small ochre paper envelopes (the seed
inside the envelope may be in a ziplock bag for further protection) put in big
jiffy envelopes.
A botanical garden that sells its seeds to finance its maintenance. To quote
the site: "The VanDusen Volunteer Seed Collectors have been collecting,
cleaning, packaging and selling their seeds for more than two decades and as new
harvest roll in the store is constantly updated with new items." Despite being
harvested by volunteers, the seeds are quite expensive, but it offers a fairly
wide range, and I enjoyed browsing the site. Not having bought anything there,
and not seeing this information anywhere on the site, I don't know what forms of
payment they accept. The site is in French and English. Due to US import
regulations, VanDusen reluctantly no longer sells to US customers.
A wiki about heirloom vegetables and especially tomatoes. A bit slow to load
sometimes, but, like those tomato information sites, great for looking up
obscure varieties. It has a page for ordering seeds, which is why I'm not
listing it with the tomato information sites on the next page. It has links to
other seed sellers and informative sites.
The United Kingdom
Thompson & Morgan worldwide
(non-UK customers)
Rest of EU
United States
Canada
