Where To Get The Coolest Seeds
My Top 15 Seed Companies: Fill your garden with delicious wonder & delight
I've been gardening in one form or another for 25+ years. From backyards to tiny patios to community gardens to farm-scale fields. In that time, I've become a seed snob, as anyone would after so many trials and tribulations with various seed companies. I have developed strong preferences, and today I will share them with you.
The seed companies listed below cover a broad spectrum of different types. There are quirky, tiny operations offering oddball stuff along with large companies selling reliable workhorses. Between these 15 companies, you can easily find enough to keep you busy and excited in the garden for the rest of your life.
This guide isn't comprehensive—I'm just one guy, and I only have so much space to write and garden—so if something isn't listed here, that doesn't mean I think it's bad. But these are my go-to’s right now, and I'm confident in recommending them all. Note that this list is just for seeds; I will write a future newsletter on live plants.
One other note: there are lots of good ways to get seeds without buying them, from wild collecting to in-person seed swaps to online seed exchanges. Those are all good things to do, but covering that will require a different post.
So without further ado: My Top 15 Seed Companies
Easily one of the coolest and most interesting agriculture projects going right now, EFN is an open-source plant breeding initiative that also sells a lot of great seeds. They offer the opportunity to participate in vital plant breeding projects to anyone interested, plus loads of stuff that is novel, useful, and difficult to source. Very much worth supporting.
An exceptional source for traditional Native American seeds, and a great project that's worth supporting. The emphasis here is on varieties suited to the Southwest, but there are still plenty of things that will work well in more northerly gardens. The only source for many of the items they offer, such as this rare chile. Also offering crafts and pantry items.