Where to find good seeds

At the recent Southeastern Flower Show, I stopped by the Landreth seed booth and purchased some packets of seed that I will be starting this week inside. Seed companies are a great way to find the seed you can't always find locally. For instance, I looked for Roma tomato plants last year, but couldn't find even one at the local places. I will just have to start them from seed. I was happy to find seed at the show for large leaf basil, dill, black cherry tomatoes and spaghetti squash.

Some seed, like cilantro, I purchased because I want to plant plenty of it and the plants are SO expensive in the store. This weekend, the herbs at Lowe's were being sold for $3.48 each! I said no thanks to that. I thought that was way too expensive -- I just plan to start my seed until I can find them on sale. I might pay that much if it was a very rare plant but I am sorry, I can't see charging that much for a tiny container of rosemary or mint.
You can find great seed catalogs online. That's where you can find so many unusual and hard to find seeds. I have had great success from online ordering and I think the seeds are probably cheaper than buying from many of the large chain stores that carry seed. I have registered online for many of the seed catalogs and have received a number of them but they don't all come immediately.

I think having them in your hand is better than viewing them online. They usually include more detail and I like to read what they say and then order online. To find them, I did a web search for seed catalogs and feasted my eyes on dozens of online choices, ordering every catalog I could. They are a great resource for me.


My favorite place to buy seed locally is from Arnall Grocery Company in Newnan. They have large packs of seed and even though they don't always have everything I want, the seed they carry always comes up for me and they are the seeds that work well in our local climate.

I didn't have time because of work to stop by last week, but I did drive by and notice they have some plants outside already. I am sure that means they also have some great things inside. I plan to stop by as soon as I can -- but it will have to be tomorrow because they are not open on Mondays. They told me last fall that they plan to carry a larger inventory of organic products this year so I just can't wait to see what have will have. I am sure they will be getting things in from now until April or May.

Tractor Supply could be an interesting place to check out. I have heard (from my cousin Evan, who is an employee) that they have some plants in their seasonal section, so I hope to check them out today. They would have to be better than Lowe's over the weekend!

Please let me know if you find a great place to purchase seed and I will post it.

Next week, I hope it will be time to start planting cool weather crops.