Tips for Buying Seeds

This is a great time of year for gardeners – seed and plant catalogs are arriving in the mail and we can start considering hundreds of new plants to try in our gardens this year. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you peruse your catalogs and decide which plants to try in your garden this summer.  

Purchase from a Reputable Company
Ask gardening friends for their recommendations on seed companies they have purchased from and had good results. Or check out the National Garden Bureau’s retail members. This ensures you get fresh seeds with a good germination percentage, plants in good condition after shipping and good customer service. 

Some companies specialize in specific types of plants, which can be great if you’re looking for a really deep selection of tomatoes (Totally Tomatoes), more choices in onions than the red or white sets you find at the garden centers in spring (Dixondale Farms) or only heirloom plants (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds).  

Order Early
In recent years, there has definitely been an uptick in new gardeners. As a result, it's not surprising to see an increased demand for mail order seeds and plants. Don’t miss out on your preferred choices – order early!  

Don’t Take on Too Much
A small, well-tended garden is more productive than a large weedy one. Don’t let winter pre-garden season enthusiasm trick you into ordering too much. Be realistic about how much work the garden will be in July and August when it’s 95°F + degrees and sweltering outside. How much weeding and harvesting can you really do? 

But do buy all the seeds you need for the entire year. Typically multiple plantings are required for continuous harvest of lettuce, beans or cucumbers throughout the summer. Popular cultivars sell out fast; don’t expect them to still be available by early summer. Remember to buy seed for a fall garden, too. Cool crops like cabbage and kale are great for the cooler days of fall.  

Some seeds can be saved for a few years and still have a good germination percentage. Learn more about seed storage- Vegetable Garden Seed Storage and Germination Requirements.

Hybrids vs. Heirlooms?
There are lots of choices. Bush beans or pole beans? Green beans or yellow beans? Standard round-podded snap beans or the flat Italian type? Hybrid or open-pollinated varieties? The price difference between hybrid and standard varieties of the same crop may be significant. The obvious question is "Why should I pay the higher price for the hybrid when the standard variety is a proven performer?" 

Hybrids. That higher price stems from the years of exacting work that it takes to produce a new hybrid. Carefully chosen parent plants must be cross-pollinated by hand to try to produce offspring with special characteristics, such as disease resistance, seedlessness (think cucumbers) or plants with a certain growth habit. Then the resulting seed has to be grown out and the plants evaluated. The right combination may not occur the first time - finding it may take years. Then the developer has to produce sufficient seed to meet projected demand. 

The desirable characteristics of hybrids are uniformity -- in plant size and habit, flowering and fruiting times, flower color and fruit size -- improved disease resistance and wider adaptability to environmental stress. All of these together translate into healthier, more productive plants. If you consistently have problems with a disease in your garden, such as tomato spotted wilt virus or powdery mildew, a cultivar with resistance will make your garden easier to maintain.

The drawback to hybrid plants, is that seeds harvested from hybrid plants typically produce plants very unlike their parents. The results, though interesting, are unpredictable and often disappointing. When hybrids cross-pollinate, their more desirable characteristics may be lost in the shuffling of genetic material. 

If you buy fresh seed every year and want the most productive, least problem-prone garden, hybrids are probably the way to go. If you want to save seed from this year’s garden to plant next year, open-pollinated varieties would be a better choice

Heirlooms. With heirloom or open-pollinated varieties, the development process is a bit simpler but takes a long time. Plants are grown in a field or garden, pollinated by wind or insects and seed is harvested once the flowers or fruits are mature. Each year, seed is harvested from the healthiest, most vigorous plants, those with good flavor and production. So, although the breeding process is simpler, it can take decades to develop a new plant line with great quality, which is stable under open pollination conditions. 

Gardeners who want to harvest seed from their gardens to plant each year should stick with open-pollinated heirloom varieties. These plants "breed true" -- that is, the plants and fruits grown from seed will be very similar to the parent plants. 

Check the catalog description or plant label to determine if the plant is an heirloom or hybrid. Some catalogs indicate hybrids by placing "F1" after the names.