Seed Catalog Roundup 2011, Part II

Reader Contribution by Lawrence Davis-Hollander 
Published on February 23, 2011
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Here’s another batch of great seed catalogs for your consideration.  I’m  shortening the length of these reviews because I’ll never get to them all with the level of detail I gave you in my first review. I’ve been preoccupied with researching biblical herbs, culinary herbs and spices for some new posters.

Many readers are familiar with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds which has quickly positioned itself as one of the premier heirloom and open pollinated seed catalogs, in addition to creating a veritable heirloom seed industry. They’ve gotten a lot of media attention and deservedly so because they are doing a lot to promote and conserve heirloom seeds. Their catalog is impressive to behold, weighty and thick and filled with lots of photos. You might even call it a bit indulgent with lots of gloss and full page photo spreads, and this serves as a excellent photo resource yet with a down home feel.

It’s not always clear from their descriptions what’s an heirloom and what is an open pollinated variety and there is plenty of information in the descriptions.  Clearly they have made a great effort to include many rare and historic varieties. The listings of  cucumbers. eggplants, tomatoes, squash, watermelon, melons are outstanding and there’s even some species melons included. Other well represented vegetables include okra and cowpeas (usually waste of time in my Zone 5) beets, carrots and oddities like the tropical winged bean or Solanum sisymbriifolium, a nasty thorny tomato relative that’s interesting to sample, and clearly they liked the fruit a lot more than I do. There’s plenty of flower seed selection at the back of the catalog. All in all Baker’s Creek is a treasure trove of heirloom and other seeds 

If Baker Creek is becoming the big boy on the block then the Seed Savers Exchange must be the Dad.   This non-profit’s decades long seed preservation efforts created new awareness for the value of our food heritage and helped sprout other seed savers and programs. Their catalog is filled with many rare and historic categories and I’m pleased to see extraordinarily rare items I was growing ten years ago are available commercially.  For example in peppers there’s Maule’s Red Hot, a variety I reintroduced, which was available from only one seed bank I Europe, and Napolean a great sweet pepper. Particularly notable is SSE selection of melons,  squash, watermelon tomatoes, peppers, lettuce cucumbers eggplant and beans. They offer a limited selection of transplants, potatoes and garlic including a few of my favorite Bogatyr, Chesnok Red, Georgia Crystal and Siberian.  There’s also a good selection of  flowers and some prairie seeds although their geographic origin is  not clear, which is useful to know for native plantings.

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