Ordering our 2021 seeds brings me hope and so much joy. It gets me excited in the dead of the winter. Hope for another season of gardening, digging in the dirt, getting my hands dirty once again and providing food for our family.
Before you start ordering your 2021 seeds
Plan out your garden layout and what you want to plant. I have a blog post on how I planned out my 2021 Gardens and what we are planting HERE.
Deciding where and what type of seeds you want to order
It took me a few years to decide what companies that I want to order my seeds from. Here is what my deciding factors were. I wanted to support as local as possible. Osborne Seeds is only about a 45 minute drive from where we live. Local is great because I know these seeds can tolerate our wet climate. I order from Baker Creek, because they sell a lot of Heirloom seeds. I know if I want to save seeds from my plants at harvest time, I know they will grow true to seed.
The last main seed company we order from is Territorial Seeds Company. The reason I love their seeds, is because I know they can handle our wet climate. They were recommended to me by our local Farm and Feed store.
I recommend going to your local farm and garden store, the small mom and pop store, not the large corporations. They are always so helpful and willing to answer any questions that you have. When I was beginning, they were such an invaluable resource.
This year I have only placed one seed order and that was from Osborne Seeds. Our next order will be from Territorial Seed Company. and will be our large corn seed order.
requesting a catalog or looking up a catalog online
I am a total paper person and it drives my husband crazy. I love to have my seed catalogs arrive in the dark days of December. Once they start arriving, it is time to start planning. Once I have it all mapped out, I make a list of seeds I need to order. I check my seed stock from last year. After I have planned out and listed what we need, I gather my catalogs, my favorite beverage and sit down and look at my catalogs. As I find the seeds I want to order, I make a note on my list of what catalog, the page number and the item number if it is available.
ordering your 2021 seeds
Once I have completed writing it all down, I go online and in the search bar, I type in the exact name of the seed I want to order. I like to order online verses sending out the paper order form. I like to order this way, because these companies do sell out of seeds and sometimes sell out quickly. This year there were a few seeds that I wanted, but they had already sold out and I had to choose a back up.
I recommend ordering early. If you wait until last minute, you will have a hard time getting the seeds you want.
How many seeds do you want to order
If you are just starting out, I would just order one small packet of each. Seeds do “expire” and the older they get, the more germination issues you will run into. Funny story, this year I ordered spinach seeds. I thought I bought one small seed packet. When it arrived, it was a very large seed packet with over 1 million little spinach seeds inside. This is more spinach seeds than I will plant in my entire lifetime. I will plant what we need and donate the rest to the school gardening program. That is if they are doing in person learning this spring. If not, I will donate them to the community gardens in our town. Someone will be able to benefit from my ordering mistake.
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