Baker Creek Seeds

I'm always on the hunt for a good seed company for my garden. I've tried just about everybody including the big guys like Burpee and Stokes, down to more of the specialty, smaller companies like Pinetree. This year I tried someone new.

January and February are always looked forward to as the time when the seed catalogs arrive. It's a lot of fun, during an otherwise miserable time of year, paging through each offering deciding on what and how much to buy. Planning the garden and re-planning the garden fills many a chilly winter evening.

This year was no exception, except that I received a catalog from Baker Creek http://www.rareseeds.com/ , a new source (new to me, they've been in business since 1998. Jere Gettle started the company originally as a place to save and preserve rare heirloom seeds. Eventually, the company sprouted like the seeds they sell into a company that now offers 1275 varieties of rare seeds through there catalog sales and at there in the Ozark hills near Mansfield, Missouri.

The catalog (pictured above) was a stunner. Magazine size, with big glossy photos it served as part catalog, part coffee table book. I eagerly poured over the many pages, selecting a nice variety of seeds to order and placed my order at their online store.

My order arrived in one week. Included was a cash refund for an item they were out of stock on, and a gift packet of lettuce seeds. I was nicely impressed. The other companies I ordered from had not yet shipped my seeds, with one company delaying for over one month due to "excessive business" causing a strain on their system.

The first seeds in the ground were the six lettuce varieties, a variety of arugula, and two varieties of swiss chard that I purchased for my kitchen garden. We sowed them in line in 1/2" trenches and have been rewarded with nearly 100% germination and fantastic harvests. The quality of the lettuce, arugula, and chard is amazing, pictures don't do it justice.

We've been enjoying fresh salads for the past month and look to continue to enjoy them for weeks to come. The varieties of lettuce and cress planted make for a wonderful taste and texture to the salads, the arugula has an especially good flavor.

Tonight we intend to harvest some of the beautiful swiss chard to add to the dinner salads.

Baker Creek Seeds is my new #1 source of seeds. I see no reason to use anyone else. Since Baker Creek only sells heirloom varieties, Shelley and I also intend to save quite a few seeds this year in anticipation of next years garden. It will be our first foray into seed saving, however, the quality of the plants grown from Baker Creek indicate that we should be very successful.