Before I joined Dave's garden I bought about 5 envelopes of seeds. I have not done any seed planting in a long time. I generally buy plants because I have had very limited time and needed the jump start. THIS TIME since I have moved to a new area, do not know anybody or have anything to trade, I thought I'd better at least plant some seeds to get started. One of the packages, I'm not sure had more than 3 seeds in it and it was NOT an exotic plant! None of them were generous amounts of seeds. They were "just flowers" but goodness! Good thing I was not counting on getting very many started. I truly thought I would be in position to offer my leftovers to some members here. The only thing I have more of is Cosmos. NEXT year I will do trading here, at least I'll get what I paid for!!! LOL
Happy gardening folks!
Pat
Commercial seeds... what a disappointment!
Pat it is disappointing to work at trying to grow them and they don't do anything. I have had that happen several times this year.
OH YIKES!!! You mean there is MORE disappointment to come with these seeds? LOL
It will happen again but you get a lot more than you lose.
Pat - I, too, have found that the commercial seed packets leave a LOT to be desired and I have also found that many of those seeds don't even germinate for me. I have done a lot of group swaps and trading here with DGers. Most everything I received here has been viable seeds and was happy to grow in my garden. Some just don't make it because they don't like the heat here.
For postage or a seed trade ..... DG far surpasses any commercial seed I have ever gotten. And the folks here are so generous and give so much wonderful advice on how to grow their shared seeds/plants. I still occasionally buy commercial seeds or tubers or rhinzomes or bulbs .... but given the choice ..... I would rather trade for them with someone on DG. But sometimes I just can't get them here when I need them, so that is when I do go commercial.
That's my .02 cents worth of opinion. lol
I agree, becky, DG is a reliable seed source. I'd also like to recommend wintersowing for those of you who haven't tried it. You don't have to go crazy like some of us do! But it keeps the seeds safe from birds and rain, etc.
xxx, Carrie
Pat, That is so disappointing, isn't it? I had some EMPTY envelopes from Value Seed this year (which they replaced, I might add)
Just let people know you're new to DG later in the summer and we'll send you seed, Maybe I should rephrase that: *I'll* send you some seed later this summer, and I'm pretty sure other people will, too. :)
Dmail me in a month and I'll have yellow hollyhoock & pink hh, for sure.Probably a bunch of other stuff, too. It's just that it's too early to get seed now since things are just starting up here.
Suzy
Suzy, That would be great, THANKS! I've always loved HollyHocks but have not been very successful at raising them. Maybe it's time for me to try again!
Pat
Ah!, the secret is to start a million seeds so you have 4 or 5 that live the whole 2 years to flowering adulthood. THAT'S another way that seed trading is so great. If somebody knows you're having trouble, they'll send you the whole batch. Once having said that, I hope my hollyhocks don't get the weevil-thing that eats the seed but leaves the shell intact. You don't realize the seeds are empty until you look at them very closely and see the little hole.
Suzy
I hear ya on that, Suzy! I am constantly checking the seeds produced in my gardens. Grrrr .........
This message was edited Jun 12, 2007 11:29 PM
Pat,
There's a whole thread on hollyhocks somewhere. If I get a chance, I'll send it to you later on.
xxx, Carrie
Carrie.... send the tread on hh to me as well please....!! Thanks, Donna
I had great success with Walmart brand of seeds this year(annuals and veggies) and most cost 10 and thirty cents. There were plenty of seeds to the package too....and don't normally have much good to say about Walmart.
P
Carrie - I'd be interested, too! Could you post the thread link here if you are able to find it? Thanks so much!
Peggy - Funny you should say that! I, too, tossed out into the garden bed some Walmart seeds and had success with most of the packets this year. Some still didn't grow for me, but that might have been the heat and dry weather here.
bigred,
I think Wal-Mart uses Burpee seeds. I've bought from there. Also, I've had good luck with seeds from Home Depot which are usually lower priced than marked.
A good time to buy seeds is towards the end of the season. The seeds have the year stamped on them and the stores have to get rid of them. They still work fine in the following year... you just get them for a much lower price.
Donna
And later, when you're trying to find seeds to WS, they will not be in any stores. Period.
Meanwhile, we will be just harvesting our nice fresh seeds.
xxx, Carrie
I did not mean to imply that that poppy was grown from seed by me. It was neither wintersown nor collected by a DGer. I bought it. But I did nurse it through childhood and adolescence.
xxx, Carrie
Carrie, HEY, you nursed it to adulthood.... you can claim it!!! Pat
Thank you, Pat, thank you. I wish there were more than one, but so what, I made the FIRST.
xxx, Carrie
I always hit the seed sale bins when ever I'm in Walmart and just refrigerate them until I'm ready to sew. I bought basil,dill and other herbs on sale last year,sewed them this year w/ great success and have been selling most of my crop at farmers market. A lot of my tomatoes,for our table and farmers market,are plants I grew from Walmart sale bin seeds from last year and all are doing wonderfully and loaded w/ fruit.
BUT by far,the best seeds I've ever grow from are the ones shared by other gardeners.
P
I've never had trouble unless I was trying something notoriously difficult, such as Helleborus odorus.
The companies I've patronized for years are Thompson & Morgan, Territorial, Pinetree, Seeds of Change, Abundant Life ... to name a few.