Biodynamic and Organic Gardening Resource Site

It’s the dead of winter and it seems like there is a new seed catalog arriving everyday in the mailbox. The four color catalogs awaken the urge for warmer days and the beginning of a new gardening season. the illustrations fire the imagination and soon we have visions of giant vegetable and fruits dancing in our heads. So we pull out the order form and start listing those that look most attractive to us and before you know it we’re writing out a check for a hundred dollars or so.

I would like to make a few suggestions before you plunk down those hard earned dollars.

Just as in cooking as quality ingredients make the best eating so it is with seed. Why settle for mass produced seed treated with heaven knows what to put into your carefully prepared soil.

Most of the big seed houses carry “organic seed” but there are other more exciting options available to us. After all seeds are the beginning of plant life and the quality of the plants you eat are quite dependent on what type of seed you start with.

Listed are a few seed growers whose primary concern is the quality of seed that they produce.

Biodynamic Seeds:
Box 679- Porthill, ID 83853-0697
Catalog: $2.00
Bio-Dynamic seeds. Flowers, herbs, vegetables. Probaly the first people to offer biodynamic seeds in North America.

Elixir Farm Botanicals, LLC
General Delivery
Brixey, MO 65618
Phone: 417-261-2393
Fax: 417-261-2355
E-mail: info@elixirfarm.com
Website: http://www.elixirfarm.com
Certified organic roots and seed for native and Chinese medicinal herbs.. Order online.

Threshold Seeds, Inc.
Box 701
Claverack, NY 12513
Phone: 518-672-5509.
Catalog $2
Formerly called “Community Supported Seeds,” Threshold is a network of biodynamic growers that produce and share open pollinated vegetable varieties. Their Early Green is the only open pollinated broccoli that we have ever seen that produced nice, hybrid-sized heads.

Corn Club
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute
W. 2493 County Rd. ES
East Troy, WI 53120

Turtle Tree Seed (catalog $1.00)
5569 North County Rd. 29
Loveland, CO 80538
Website: http://www.turtletreeseed.com/
Their pledge:
We pledge to offer open-pollinated seed grown on farms and in gardens working with biodynamic practices as outlined by Rudolf Steiner in his Agriculture Course of 1924. Our North American seed growers understand and are committed to this. We work with our network of growers on a basis of mutual trust and understanding, through personal contact and with specific guidelines, which include watching isolation carefully to ensure purity of variety and safety from genetic pollution. We do not carry hybrids or knowingly carry seed that has been genetically engineered or polluted with genetically engineered products. We also do not knowingly carry products from farms where animals are fed genetically engineered feed. We pledge to educate ourselves and others as we learn, grow and develop towards attaining the ideal of a biodynamic farm or garden.

If you plan to save seed or just want to try your hand at growing heirloom varieties, here is a list of some companies that offer you some interesting choices. Other reasons to grow heirlooms? Let’s allow Australian Master Gardener Clive Blazey answer that question in his excellent article What’s New is Old.

Heirloom Seeds:

Heirloom Seeds
287 E. Finley Dr.
West Finley PA 15377
Website: http://www.heirloomseeds.com/
Located in South Western Pennsylvania, they are a small, family run seed house that has been in the mail order business since 1988.

The Seed Savers Exchange
3094 North Winn Rd
Decorah
Iowa 52101
Phone: (563) 382-5990
Fax: (563) 382-6511
Website: http://www.seedsavers.org/
Since 1975, Seed Savers Exchange members have passed on approximately one million samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. They are a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company
2278 Baker Creek Road
Mansfield, MO 65704
Phone: (417) 924-8917
Fax: (417) 924-8887
Website: http://rareseeds.com/
Open-pollinated seeds: pure, natural and non-GMO! Heirloom seeds from 70 countries, including many that they collected themselves. Started in 1998 by Jere Gettle, as a means to preserve rare seeds.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds
955 Benton Avenue
Winslow, ME 04910
(207) 861-3900
Fax: 1-800-738-6314
E-mail: rstore@johnnyseeds.com
Website: http://www.johnnyseeds.com/
Catalog: Free online.
While Johnny’s specializes in short-season crops, it also offers a nice selection of heirlooms identified as such.

Landreth Seed Company
180 West Ostend Street
P.O. Box 6398
Baltimore, MD 21230
Phone: (800) 654-2407
Website! http://www.landrethseeds.com/
The Oldest seed house in America(founded 1784) offers an assortment of old and open-pollinated vegetables. Heirloom vegetables, many of which they have offered since these varieties were new. The 193 varieties listed here.

If you want to attain sustainability try a few of the sources above. Your garden will thank you.

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