seed shopping sites

[pigeonseed]

That's exciting, goodlife. Tell us about the varieties.

[pigeonseed]

[galina]

Congratulations, Goodlife.  Glad you liberated some seedbank varieties with a view to making them more widely available.  This will be exciting.  Wish you all the best with your grow-outs.  And hope that they turn out to be really useful too.

Coming back to seed shopping sites.  Found this Swiss seed shop, who have a very nice line in rare Pro Specie Rara seeds (Swiss equivalent of our Heritage Seed Library or Seed Savers Exchange in USA).  They send anywhere in Europe if payment is made by credit card.

http://www.saemereien.ch/pro-specie-rara-samen-264/index-3.html

[galina]

The reason I'm after EU sites is that I do not fancy with all rules and regulations, certificates etc..if buying from outside sources...

I have bought from US seed shops.  Have kept orders very small.  There is a traveller's allowance of 5 seed packets which can be brought back from trips abroad (there are very few exceptions like real potato seeds, all normal garden seeds are ok).  I deduced that a tiny order of garden seeds is not what customs are overly worried about.  It is live plant material they really don't want without certificates.  If the seed order is small, it seems to be overlooked, but maybe I have been lucky.

[markfield rover]

goodlife, re; the private seed collectors have you taken a peek at masdudiable.com,you maybe gone sometime.

[grannyjanny]

Don't encourage her ;) ;D ;D ;D.

[goodlife]

I've never ordered any from outside of the EU..but I am increasingly more and more interested ;D There is such a quantity of different varieties of Maize and beans..as an example...that tickles my curiosity ;D
But that Saemereien site will keep me interested for a while ;D

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Tell us about the varieties.
Well....2 Turnips..(Kiihtelysvaara& Rustiina) which both are old Finnish varieties..there is one of similar in HSL collection..these were originally grown in forest clearings..all the wood was burned into ashes and these turnip varieties were grown in that ground as a first crop. One of these are actually from village where my Gran was born.
2 Pea varieties...One Finnish one Swedish (Paula & Skansk Margart)..garden peas
1 Variety of Chives from Finland (Lyperto)
1 Wheat ( Apu) from Finland..
2 Beans (Swedish Brown & Swedish One Dot)
Now I don't know nothing about heights etc. as they do not provide this info..
Turnips and chives are no problem..Beans should be climbing as they are vulgaris group and I assume the peas are short/ medium height as tall ones would struggle to produce full crop up north...I assume ::)
But its all fun to find out what they are like. One of the turnips feels already like family treasure..I'm hoping to save some seed of those and send it over for relations as present..one day..I bet even they haven't heard of it although being local variety ;D..Can't wait.. Now I have to polish my brassica seed saving skills ;D

[goodlife]

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goodlife, re; the private seed collectors have you taken a peek at masdudiable.com,you maybe gone sometime.
Some encouragement is always very welcome ;D.

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Don't encourage her    .
What else one can do for addiction..I don't drink, smoke, do drugs..seedaholic is at least hamless..ish.. ;D
One cannot take the pocket money with her when time comes..so she might as well make some use of it...relations only argue over it..saves them a job ::)
I thought I promised my box to you GJ in my will so you should be happy that I keep it well stocked  ;D ;)...I only do it for you :-*

[galina]

What else one can do for addiction..I don't drink, smoke, do drugs..seedaholic is at least hamless..ish.. ;D

I sympathise with your predicament and it appears you genuinely have absolutely no choice in the matter  ;D  ;D 

[pigeonseed]

Goodlife, that does sound exciting.

I would love to be able to find some local varieties to grow, I keep on buying things from all over the place. I've hinted about Heritage seed library membership for Christmas, but I do that every year  ::)

How amazing to be able to locate a variety from so close to your ancestral home! Did you grow up near there as well?

[galina]

http://www.kuerbis-info.de/kataloge/pompoenenzaden.pdf
Pretty comprehensive Dutch squash catalogue for 2011.

Also do some other vegetable seeds:
http://www.kuerbis-info.de/

[galina]

http://www.loja.jardicentro.pt/index.php?cPath=27&osCsid=d28a2d43aae31b8eddd607604593f3ca

Portuguese mail order seed company.  Interesting veg such as Portuguese Couve cabbages and a really different assortment of turnips and beans too.

[Jayb]

Thanks Galina another interesting site you have found. I've already have Couve cabbage and a couple of cut n' come again types to try this year, but these look super and I'm really going to have a hard time resisting. I like the look of the dwarf butter bean too.

[SueK]

UK site not yet mentioned, with a phenomenal choice including many seeds from outside UK:
Seeds by Size
http://www.seeds-by-size.co.uk/

To go back to one of Galina's earlier posts, has anyone used Seeds by size recently?  I only ask as the last time I looked there was something on the website about the company being taken over, back in 2010...  That appears to have all gone from the web site now, but it would be great to hear that it was all running reliably.

(I can't help but feel I'm lowering the tone of the thread here! :))

[goodlife]

SueK..I don't know about Seeds-by-Size now..but this time last year I ordered some tomato seeds from them..and ended up with only half of the order. After numerous emails I got answer back ... ::)
This is the tread for the story.. http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,58759.msg601276.html#msg601276

[chriscross1966]

I contacted them a couple of weeks ago and they responded by pushing me to another website, nutsncones...


chrisc

[goodlife]

Did they explain why?

[goodlife]

Oh and another thing..has anybody heard anything about Organic Seeds online= Association Kokopelli site? Their shop is not been selling for a while but it is still online ???

[1066]

I bought some seeds yesterday from Thomas Etty, they specialise in Heritage varieties.....


http://www.thomasetty.co.uk/

1066

[pumkinlover]

I bought some seeds yesterday from Thomas Etty, they specialise in Heritage varieties.....


http://www.thomasetty.co.uk/

1066

Thought you spent up at Seedy Sunday! ;D ;D ;D

[Jayb]

Oh and another thing..has anybody heard anything about Organic Seeds online= Association Kokopelli site? Their shop is not been selling for a while but it is still online ???

Seems to be working ok, although you need the more upto date site Kokopelli seeds.com.

l love looking at Thomas Etty's site and catolgue, altough I've never ordered anything  :'( ....yet  ;D