WOW ! Have they increased in the last few years, since 2007 and 2008. Many by 25% ! That couple with the shipping cost increases it's getting to the point where starting your own veggies are just too expensive.

Tomatoes here last week, even the usually less expensive romas - $4.99/lb. A head of nutritionally inert iceburg lettuce was $1.89....I'm paying more for the salad I serve than I am my entree. Not that I bought the tomatoes, couldn't justify the quality with the price.

Anyway in 2000 my orders were $31.05 +74.34= $105.39

In 2010 my orders were $32.33 + $27.35 + $51.40= $111.08

Last year my order was $115. Although I roughly order the same vegetables I may get different flowers. The difference may be extra flower seeds or a more expensive variety--I don't really know.

What I do know is that things haven't changed much that i've noticed, except the shipping charges and you can blame the post office for that. The difference Between my 2000 order and my 2010 order is $6 for the entire order including shipping. Not a great increase in my opinion considering how much the price of groceries in the store have gone up.

Dominion seed house in Canada charges nothing for shipping if your seed order is over $30 or if your plant and seed order is over $80. I looked at their catalogue and all their seeds are a bit more than others charge. T+T seeds has a $2 shipping charge for small orders and their prices are most reasonable. All business decisions and nothing to do with the cost of seeds.

As for ordering 1 package of seeds-- well let me ask you this What does your local furniture store charge for delivery? Is it not the same for 1 chair as it is for a whole truck full of furniture. It would be a bookkeeping nightmare to do it any other way.

There are plenty of seed companies out there so just like the seed companies you have to make a business decision about where to order from

I think you are confusing organic growing with seed production. They are completely different things.

I think you need a lesson in seeds!

Seeds sold by seed companies aren't genetically modified. Those genetically modified seed are jealously guarded be their developers and you cannot buy them. A genetically modified seed is one where they have taken a plant that has a certain characteristic like not being suseptible to certain plant diseases and things and mixing that gene into an altogether different plant. They may take the ability of peas to withstand freezing and cross it with a tomato that is suseptible to freezing.

Then there are hybrids. Hybridization has been going on for centuries. Hybridization is taking plants that have certain characteristics and breeding other like plants, to have that characteristic. Hybridization never crosses plant lines. A tomato is always fertilized with another tomato.

If you want pure seed then go for heritage seeds. These are also jealously guarded by growers to be pure seed and seed is saved from year to year. Many gardeners do save their own seed from year to year. There are even seed banks to preserve the varieties. If you grow a heritage vegetable you will be growing varieties that have been around for centuries. Find yourself a seed supplier who specializes in heritage seeds and you can be sure it will be pure.

While I don't disagree with what oilpainter has posted I think it's a thumbnail sketch. You might like to read "Seed to Seed" to learn more about seed saving and production.

Three things I think you would probably like to know regarding your question:

1. GMO plants are usually modified with completely different organisms not just an interesting plant cross. Inserting the ability to produce BT from bacterium for example.

2. Hybrids are plant crosses to introduce additional genetic diversity and "hybrid vigor", which improves plant performance. Usually the resulting seed of a hybrid is sterile.

3. Hybrids, Hierloom/Antique, or open pollinated seed are all separate from whether that was seed was produced organically. You could find organically produced hybrids for example.

As oilpainter notes you don't run across GMO seed in most of retail seed carriers. Many seed companies provide organically grown seed like:

Park Seed

Territorial Seed Company

Fedco

to name a few.

Hope this helps!

I have been really happy with the following heirloom / non gmo seed merchants:

http://rareseeds.com/
http://heirloomseeds.com/

Heritage lines breed true ? Nooo - heritage refers to the perceived origin of the plant. Just because the population it derives from was developed in the last century has nothing to do with its mode of reproduction which is the driving force on the genetic structure of the population and determines whether it is genetically uniform, or not. If you have a largely self pollinating plant like pea - it can maintain genetic continuity and stability over time. Out crosssing plants (corn/pumpkin)are extremely difficult to maintain in pure state without controlled pollinations unless they are growing in strict isolation. So, the bottom line is that a heritage label has very little to do with genetic continuity across generations. It follows that genetic purity is NOT a broad result of heritage/antique labelled material. Rather the opposite. Often such material is diverse in genetic background because of ad-mixtures, outcrosssing, segregating material, accumulated mutations and more... all this speaks to diverse germplasm not purity and uniformity.

GMO=genetically modified organism. Most GMO's are mans insertions of genetic material into the genome of another recipient plant. The donor can be from the same or another species.

Organic production is the PROCESS of production. Whether a cultivar is labelled as "heritage" or "antique" has little to do with process and much to do with provenance/origin and handling of the germplasm over its history. Its true, but confusing, that organic standards impose restrictions and requirements on cultivars that qualify for "organic labelling". However, these seed source restrictions are aimed at excluding certain material deemed to be undesirable. Less to do with directly qualifying the source as more desirable than another. Yes, I know some ideological purists will not agree. However, you can grow a GMO modified plant in an organic production system - it will not qualify for organic labelling, but it will have been grown organically. Confused - so is the rest of the world. So are the standards.

Back to seed prices. Driving factors in price increases are rapidly escalating costs of shipping and regulatory/legal compliance.