Need advise for herb buying please where do you all buy from?
HeY! where do you all buy your herbs?
well, I buy mine at garden centers mostly, but just recently discovered a site for herbs and herb seeds at
www.richters.com
they seem to have quite a selection
I was going to buy at richters ,But I read there feedback,here in Dg
I havent had a bad experience, but I could see by the feedback where you might be hesitant. Still, I have bought herbs in the past from Burpee and Parkseed before. Maybe you might try those?
i try to support any local nurseries first, then if they don't have the herbs i want (mostly the medicinals) i go to the cheapest catalog i can find (this year it was pinetree garden seeds) and for herbs that are from native tribal medicines i go through native seeds search, but they are out of most of their unusual ones by this time of year.
Thank you for your information very helpful
www.richters.com
www.horizonherbs.com
www.companionplants.com
www.thymegarden.com
www.crimsonsage.com
Thank you for the links I will check these out!
Ditto to www.thymegarden.com. Another great site is www.goodwincreekgardens.com.
I second herbalbetty's choice of Horizon Herbs
If you are talking live plants, I have bought live herbs from Richter's and had problems in that I was charged for the plants but they did not have them. Then they wanted to keep the money as a credit towards my next purchase. This made me mad. They also kept the plants up on the website so that others would order them even though they had a crop failure in them. That did not seem honest to me.
I have had problems with ordering seeds from them as well, but when I have asked the customer service rep to go and check if they actually have the seed in stock, then I have gotten the seed. Otherwise, they will take an order for a seed they don't have and you will get it three months later. This happened to me three times, so now I always have them check.
This year I bought herb seeds from various places but I bought live plants from a wonderful local greenhouse called Baker's Acres. Excellent plants and big selection, plus a nice ride up in the Fingerlakes area.
Wow, there's a local greenhouse here called Baker's Acres, too. Also a pretty wonderful place :)
I've been buying plants from a garden center but next year they'll be bought at a nursery. For seed I'd like to experiment with trading or ordering online because finding what I want has been frustrating.
It would be beneficial to some how get herbs that we cant get to trade or buy on dave's if at all possible a wonderful Idea,
this site:
http://www.seedsite.eu is really good, it is owned by a DG member Jonna Sudenius that also sells in the DG marketplace. excellent service, seeds, she does a lot of trades and has some things that are hard to find here.
sherman99
A place that I tried since I posted is Mountain Valley Growers:
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/
Their plants are terrific, and they have a very large selection. They even have dittany of Crete, which I have found nowhere else.
I've had good luck purchasing herbs from our local W-mart. Some W-marts are better than others, and it's best to make plant purchases a day or so after they arrive at the store because as far as I can tell the staff don't take care of them.
Paracelsus ~ do you use Dittany of Crete in foods? I love it and have grown it in the past as an ornamental oregano. Never for consumption so am curious.
More good links to shop thru. Thanks for reviving this thread. I purchase herbs at Wmart and other garden centers as well as from small growers at the local flea markets and farmers markets and have found some very unusual herbals via ebay.
Podster, I use it for making oils for use in magic and meditation. It smells very much like ordinary oregano to me, but it seems much stronger.
I love its' fragrance. Interesting to know its' use as I couldn't visualize it in foods.
Rather like Cuban oregano which smells just a bit less pleasant and is another herb I can't imagine in food products..
Yeah, I tried cooking with Cuban oregano once, but I think one leaf can flavor a dump truck full of food!
Yeowch! lol I can only imagine.
In thinking about it, I had the ornamental oregano known as Kents' Beauty and I am not sure it was the true Dittany of Crete, although commonly called that.
I had Kent's Beauty too. It was identified as O. dictamnus "Kent's Beauty" when I bought it and it had fuzzy leaves but not as fuzzy as the O. dictamnus I got from Mountain Valley Growers, but according to photos, O. rotundifolia does not have very fuzzy leaves. Check out this pic of Kent Beauty:
http://www.hmaplants.com/images/prod/1284690901Oregano%20Kent%20Beauty%20DSC_9502b.jpg
Here's the dittany:
http://www.mountainvalleygrowers.com/oridictamnus.htm
Thanks for the links. Mine was definitely Kents' Beauty.
Tell me which of these you prefered for your craft?
It's great to have real dittany of Crete. I did look up the essential oil content, and it is not very different from plain oregano. But it's the thought that counts! :)
Some great links here!
What a great thread! just what I have been looking for.