Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri should be exactly what you're looking for. Their web site is www.rareseeds.com. It offers an extensive selection of heirloom varieites, and their catalog is extremely colorful and descriptive, with excellent photography worthy of a coffee table art book.

Most of the companies selling to home gardeners are relatively small and independent even when they are small conglomerate. I think you want only to deal with open pollinated seeds. Seed companies that sell hybrids have to buy them from seed producers like Seminis, Sygenta etc. That said there are a lot of companies that only sell open pollinated seeds. Baker Creek has been mentioned, others include Sandhill Preservation, Victory Seeds, Heirloom Acres, Heirloom Seeds, Amishland Heirloom Seeds, ....
Here is a link, which covers most of them. It does include companies which also sell hybrid seed, so you will need to weed them out if you are phoebic about the commercial seed producers.

Here is a link that might be useful: Op/heirloom vendors

Also, Abundant Life Seed Foundation

Fedco Seeds has stopped selling all Seminis produced seed since they became part of Monsanto. They polled their customers and have a customer letter on their website explaining why they dropped a supplier who previously had supplied 11% of their product. Fedco does sell hybrids produced by other companies, many of which are important crops for many growers, including many organic growers. I feel non-GMO hybrids have an important place in many growing situations. Sure, you can't save seed from them, but they have no "terminator" genes. GMOs, which Fedco shuns, are a different story. I have real concern about them.

Should you buy from Fedco? That's your decision, but I feel they are responsible and upfront. They have definitely educated me about who produces the seeds I buy and made me think about alot I never considered before.

Independence in an inter-connected market may be a myth. Catalog companies are often NOT growing their own seed. Even purchasing heirlooms doesn't guarantee that there's no "industry" developing around that customer choice.

Sorting thru the corporate equity maze isn't easy. Ownership is protected information in some circumstances.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Who Owns What

Hi! I work at Johnny's Selected Seeds, and I too have read Barbara Kingsolver's book. First and foremost, Johnny's adheres to the Safe Seed Pledge. For more information, please click here: Johnny's Safe Seed Pledge.

Johnny's carries a few varieties produced by Seminis Seed, which is now owned by Monsanto. I want to make this distinction because many seed companies had a relationship with Seminis before they were purchased. A part of Johnny's mission is to provide customers with quality, unique varieties. If customers demand varieties that only Seminis carries, we will provide those. However, as Johnny's finds varieties that are in all ways suitable to replace a Seminis variety, Johnny's replaces it with a variety from another vendor. We are slowly phasing out Seminis varieties, without harming customer demand for certain varieties.

If anyone has further questions about this, please feel free to call us toll-free at 1-877-564-6697 and we'd be happy to talk to you about it further.

With respect to independent ownership, Johnny's is in the process of becoming employee-owned. Here is some information on that process: Johnny's ESOP Plan.

I hope this information has helped!

D. Walton

I believe the threat posed to home gardening when large companies such as Monsanto control seed production is not so much in their use of genetic manipulation as it is in their relative disinterest in garden seeds. They are more interested in serving the agricultural industry. That's where seed is sold in large quantities. If I am right, garden seeds are only incidental to agricultural seed production. In other words, if a radish variety is of interest to market growers then it may also be offered by garden seed companies. For non-commercial vegetable varieties we must depend on smaller companies which produce their own seed. There is a danger of many varieties disappearing under this system. See a couple of current threads here for examples of this.

Jim

Right, Jim. That's sort of where I was coming from, even I didn't actually say it. I want to support companies that are keeping the less known, weird and wonderful varities of seed around, because like the Carolina Parakeet, once they're gone, they're GONE!

How many of you knew that the US once had a native parakeet on the east coast?!?!?

"How many of you knew that the US once had a native parakeet on the east coast?!?!? "

I did, I did. So sad that many species are gone forever.
.....Now I'd really like to take a few months off and go south with my kayak and look for ivory billed woodpeckers. It's amazing that they are not extinct. I stood on my porch stunned the day I picked up the newspaper and saw headlines announcing that ivory bills had been seen. I never had a happy headline affect me quite like that before.

Think it's time for me to choose a few veggie varieties to maintain and pass on to others. And maybe choose my companies to order from a bit differently. When a variety dies out, it is lost forever.

There's a lot to be said for the GW seed exchange and collecting your own seed. There are some very good seed firms as well, of course.

Its hard for me to even express how much I dislike Monsanto. Creators of saccharin, polystyrene, 2,4,5-T, Agent Orange, aspartame (NutraSweet), bovine somatotropin (bovine growth hormone; BST), and PCBs. And now the GMO disaster. If companies didn't have more rights than individuals, Monsanto would get the corporate death penalty.

By phasing out Seminis is Johnny's dropping Monsanto completely, or only their seeds?

Robin,

On May 9, 2007 8:06 AM, Johnny's Selected Seeds said;

Johnny's carries a few varieties produced by Seminis Seed, which is now owned by Monsanto. I want to make this distinction because many seed companies had a relationship with Seminis before they were purchased. A part of Johnny's mission is to provide customers with quality, unique varieties. If customers demand varieties that only Seminis carries, we will provide those. However, as Johnny's finds varieties that are in all ways suitable to replace a Seminis variety, Johnny's replaces it with a variety from another vendor. We are slowly phasing out Seminis varieties, without harming customer demand for certain varieties.

If anyone has further questions about this, please feel free to call us toll-free at 1-877-564-6697 and we'd be happy to talk to you about it further.

Sincerely,
Johnny's Selected Seeds

The link below is very informative and provides an overall view of this disturbing story.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Seed Alliance

People garden for many reasons. I like to grow the best seed I can get for varieties that do well or may do well in my region. Heirloom, F1 or OP, I'll use them all. My seed house preferences are Territorial, Johnnys and Tomato Growers Supply when I want strong varieties that grow. When I want to play around and preserve heirlooms I go through Seed Savers Exchange. The biggest loss to those who like heirlooms was the burning down of the Abundant Seed Life Foundation a few years back. They were located around here and it was always a great experience to go to their "shop".

What is an Heirloom? I grow Tar Heel beans which they brought here at the beginning of the 20th century. But we don't have North Carolina weather and what we now call Tar Heels here are really a Skagit Valley, WA. heirloom and not a NC one. If my seeds were grown in NC they'd probably die of some humidity related disease. If I brought seed from NC to grow here they probably wouldn't do well in 60 degree high temps and summer nights in the 40's. So when you buy what's called an heirloom from a good company as Baker Creek and the seed was not grown in it's "native" area is it really an heirloom? Hope the New Year is going well for all. Tom

how many of you know there are parrots living in Brooklyn right now? Absolutely true, I've seen them, they eat pizza
and nest on the field lights at the athletic field.

I discovered a long time ago (Nixon was pres) that Parks seed in NC sold their mailing list to Nixon fund raisers. I used just my last name on seed catalogs. Nixons people divided my several syllables into a first and last name. I got a fund request addressed to "Dear Mr. Hook" I declined to contribute. I've been buying from Pinetree seeds in Maine for 10-15 yrs now. They sell small pkgs so I can plant more varieties. I've never had any problems with them, though they dont offer quite as many varieties as they once did.

Thanks Peggy. I've written a few articles about Seminis and Monsanto and the impact this has on our seed and food supply. The information in their release doesn't answer my question. Monsanto is involved in more than seeds. I'm asking if Johnny's will still be carrying Monsanto products after they phase out seeds.

Before I place my order for the things I can't get through Fedco (who does not support Monsanto) I want to be sure my money's going to a company that is in the process of eliminating Monsanto all together, not just its seeds. I've heard that this is their plan but I don't know that it means they don't or won't be carrying other products. I haven't seen anything from Johnny's saying so.

Hi Robin, I just sent you an email. Please let me know here if you didn't get it. I know there have been problems with emails getting through in the past.
Thanks, Peggy

What would have happened to Seminis and their seed resources? They were bankrupt. I wonder.

Got it Peggy! I'm going out to shovel the snow away from the greenhouse so that the next snowfall has a place to go. When I come in later I'll reply.

What would have happened to Seminis and their seed resources? They were bankrupt. I wonder.

We were not bankrupt. We were close at one time to being bankrupt. We were a publicly offered company at one time with a high IPO. Our stock priced droped very low. We were made private again by Savia. Savia sold out to an investment company in 2003 or 2004. Monsanto bought Seminis in 2005.

Yuma

round 'n' round round 'n' round round 'n' round round 'n' round . . .

Always the story in the American capitalistic economy - and what would be the alternative??

The owners of every successful little company that goes public must fear that they will fall on hard-times and shareholders will sell to a larger corporate entity. Little fish swallowed by bigger fish, swallowed by yet bigger fish . . . Even if they are not fully "swallowed" what is their relationship with the other corporate entity?

The Cook's Garden . . . Burpee . . . Ball . . . Seminis . . . Monsanto . . .

Diversify your seed purchases but if you cut your nose off to spite your face . . . who wins?

Steve
garden variety digits

I remember the name of the company that bought out Seminis in 2004. It was Fox Paine and they had purchased 58% of Seminis from Savia/Alfonso Romo.
Yuma

The only Monsanto products carried by Johnny's are those from Seminis - only because Monsanto bought Seminis. Johnny's doesn't carry other Monsanto products, so as Seminis products are replaced in our catalog, we won't have any Monsanto products.

Thanks!

D. Walton

Thanks D! That's the answer I was hoping for. I hope other seed companies follow in your foot steps.

The best I've come across, and I do like Johnny's, Territorial and others, is Fedco.. this is their discription of themselves: "We are a cooperative, one of the few seed companies so organized in the United States. Because we do not have an individual owner or beneficiary, profit is not our primary goal. Consumers own 60% of the cooperative and worker members 40%. Consumer and worker members share proportionately in the cooperativeÂs profits through our annual patronage dividends." They have a very wide selection of seeds which have done wonderfully for me and though Western Washington is somewhat similar to Maine, their home state, we do have many differences, especially heat hours. They, also, are phasing out Seminis varieties because of the issues already touched upon..

Southern exposure? Bountiful gardens? Those are two of my favorites, and I'd be shocked to learn if they are subsidiaries.