Seed Companies 2012

Dominion Seed House from Ontario, Canada. Purchased their seeds for the first time. The packaging is a little dull... but they have a great selection and also carry seeds that seem to be harder to come by. Ordered by phone, service was very efficient, if not exactly enthusiastic, the seeds arrived within a week! Even though it was during the December mail rush! Their website is set up well and easy to shop.. strangely though, could not always access it.

Stokes - A wonderful company, been around for a very long time, found both in Canada and the States. The catalogue is really nice with much better pics this year than last year, though wish they had pics of each item. Best feature - the seeding and growing info for each and every product is listed right in the order catalogue. I keep mine in the greenhouse with me as a quick guide. 

Renee's Garden Seeds - Has the loveliest colour combinations and most interesting selection of herbs, flowers and vegetables. The Zinnias come in the best colour combos I've ever seen...  for me that means no yellow, unless I want it (not)! Their Dukat Dill is the all time best, my favourite, you know how we Scandinavians love our dill. I actually trialed it against several other varieties/seed companies, and it proved to be the happiest, healthiest and tastiest in my raised garden bed. Oh, and the packaging is adorable!

Orders for heirloom tomatoes, peppers, cukes, and onions are logged into my journal... Yes, I do input the information into Excel also, but the journal is handier to access wherever I go than the computer is.

Heirloom veggie, herb, and flower seeds are coming from these companies this year...

Upper Canada Seeds - Canadian company, new to me, with a fabulous selection of heirloom tomatoes. They are listed by early, mid, or late fruiting. Click on the name of the tomato, up pops all the information. Nice site. Shipping and handling is included, so no extra fee. Yay! Received a personal thank-you email from the owner... probably recognised a fellow tomato fan (nut) ;)

Heritage Harvest Seeds - Canadian heritage and heirloom seed company, veggies, herbs, and flowers, with a great website and pictures of most all of the products. They have a main page for each category, tomatoes having it's very own main page, which lists all the varieties, so is easy to shop. Very nice site.

The Cottage Gardener - a Canadian heirloom seed supplier, flowers, herbs, and veggies.  Lovely site, good descriptions and pictures for much of the product on line. Great service, too. My only small, wee, little beef, is that the tomatoes are organised alphabetically only... wish they were broken down further into groupings by colour, or size, or fruiting time, to make it a bit less time consuming to find what I need. Other that that small thing, is a really great site. They also have a catalogue for those of us who like to peruse and go back over and over again :)    

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds - an American company with a fabulous selection and a super gorgeous catalogue. They are also on Facebook : ) Last year, my pepper seeds were stuck in customs for a bit, just long enough to make me a wee bit nervous about the seeding dates, but other than that, excellent service and information, great site, so easy to shop. I think most peeps are familiar with these guys, so I won't gush.