Growing Challenge

I received the remainder (and majority) of my seeds this week from rare seeds. They were out of the lemon summer squash I ordered, dang! Otherwise the order was complete.


My seed savers order came a week or so ago. They subbed the blue jade corn I ordered for black Aztec. Odds are I won’t plant it because I only ordered the blue jade for its uniqueness. It’s a miniature heirloom variety I was planning on growing in containers. We don’t generally raise corn because of the space it takes up for the yield produced and despite the fact that I love good corn, it doesn’t agree with me at all.

Now that I have ordered from seed savers and rare seeds for the first time, here are my observations.

Seed Savers was quicker to ship by about a week. I also love their informative seed packets. Each packet describes the product, how long until harvest and how long for seeds if applicable as in the case of cilantro. The packets give good planting instructions as well as seed saving instructions.

Rare Seeds included a free gift of sunflower seeds and lemon cucumber seeds in lieu of slow shipping time, which was very nice of them. And they refunded my money (in cash!) for the out of stock item. I was only somewhat disappointed in their packets which give no information aside from the seed name, quantity, lot number and price. This doesn’t rally pose a problem for those familiar with planting and spacing. However, for the novice gardener who might depend on this information being handy at planting time, this might pose an inconvenience. Just my thoughts on that. I know that I personally like to reference the seed packets for days to maturity, vegetable size, etc. Seed Savers gives the same basic info on the packet as they do in their catalog. I like that!