Rating the Suppliers
itsme
18 years ago
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sriston
18 years agoitsme
18 years agoRelated Discussions
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Comments (15)Here are some of my thoughts: I know lots of us have photos on Flickr and other photo sharing sites, but it might be nice if we could have a photo album for each person. So, if someone wanted to see my garden, they could go to My Page and click on my Photo Album to see my photos. An RSS opting would be nice. I would like to "subscribe" to, say, the Seed Exchange and get each new post as an RSS feed in my e-mail. Could we have Avatar options? A visual icon by each user when they post would be nice. I seem to have a hard time remembering how to update my trade list and other account info. When we log in, it might be nice if our Avatar icon is displayed at the top. We could lick on that to go to our info. Maybe we could have more of a profile page. I know this isn't exactly Facebook or YouTube, but a simple profile page might be nice. Along with the profile page, we could have a "five star" rating system for uses who participate in the exchange forums. The stars would indicate if you are a good person to trade with. Everyone else could rate you on your profile page with 0-5 stars depending on how each of us do with our exchange. Also, people could still post a comment on us and the comments would have a place on the profile page. I'm a graphic designer (although I don't really design websites) and would love to help out on occasion with any web graphics you may need. Just let me know and I can see what I can do. Indiana.Matt Matthew...See MoreShould I be seeing some growth above ground yet?
Comments (6)I have a feeling you are not going to have any dahlias this year. Your dahlias should be starting to bud, even bloom by now. I would certainly contact Swan Island so that you can get advice and a guarantee of good bulbs for next year. Did you verify that the tubers you got had eyes on them? Personally, I have had the worst luck buying tubers from mail order companies. I have been growing dahlias for about 10 years, and the best ones I get are the ones I buy from Home Depot and Lowes. I have bought from some of the best rated dahlia suppliers, and they do not grow well. I planted 14 tubers this year, and none are in bloom and at least half of them are too small at this stage to grow enough to produce blooms. And the cool spring and early summer certainly did not help....See MoreOP germination rates ?
Comments (55)what commercial supplier of heirloom seeds would you recommend? **** My experience is not as a customer b'c I think I've only purchased less than 30 packs of seed since maybe 1982, LOL, after I moved back East from teaching in Denver at the Med School, and back then, roughly before 1990 it was Seeds Blum and Gleckers and both are out of business, although I've been up close and personal with tomatoes since I was a kid back on the farm and I'll be 69 in June. Triple Sigh. But I've been posting online about tomatoes since 1989 and seen lots of feedback and I do know the owners of most of the more common seed sources. And most helpful was several years ago when here at GW I started Wrong varieties threads and there was a tremendous amount of feedback. And I continue to monitor these issues at the four places where I do read/post. There are several factors that go into choosing commercial sources and they include seeds that are true, seed age/viability, quality of information given about varieties, kinds of varieties offered, service, and seed prices, to name a few. it really does bother me when with any given variety when source A charges $2 for a pack of 30 while source B charges $4, all other factors being somewhat equal. And it really does bother me as well when some folks are attracted to a slick website and ignore what's really important as to all the variables I mentioned above. And no source selling OP varieties has a perfect record on seed purity just b'c of the nature of OP seed production. I also don't think it's critical that a site have pictures of varieties although it's fine if they do. With those caveats I'd suggest the following, somewhat in order: Tomatogrowers.com ( Linda Sapp) SandhillPreservation.com ( Glenn and Linda Drowns) Victoryseeds.com ( Mike Dunton) SSE Public catalog varieties ( seedsavers.org) (Aaron Whaley) Marianne Jones at Mariseeds.com Baker Creek, (rareseeds.com) ( Jere Gettle) Heirloom seeds ( in PA, heirloomseeds.com) ( Tom Hauch) And yes I do know all of the folks mentioned above and have interacted with all of them in one way or another, whether it's sending them varieties for trial or for some as fellow SSE members of yore, etc) And with those above there are close to a couple of thousand varieties available. If anyone wants to go beyond the more commonly offered varieties they should consider joining SSE, not just for requesting seeds from listed SSE members, and there's often a problem there in seed purity so folks should darn well know how to rogue out wrong plants and that comes solely from experience, from the Yearbook where about 4000 varieties are offered, but to help SSE with their mission of seed preservation in general. Lousy run on sentence but I'm sure you get my drift. ( smile) Every one of the above has had problems at one time or another with wrong varieties and/or low germinating seed, except for Sandhill where no seed sold is older than 2 years old, which to me is quite remarkable since Glenn lists about 400 varieties. And I should say that of late Totally Tomatoes has done a much better job but some wrong descriptions still bother me a lot. But they (Jungs) inherited blurbs from the previous owner Wayne Hilton and there are still lots of errors but it looks like most of the seeds are fine these days. I know Gary Ibsen at Tomatofest very well but I do have problems with seed prices there. Yes, I know he sells only organic seed but to me organicness is gained in how one GROWS the plants re edible fruits, not with organic seed per se which to me is more of a personal philosophy statement. Just my personal opinion. But to each his or her own. I'm hearing some good things about Skyfire seeds but don't know them as well. And for sure there are others but you asked me which ones I'd suggest to others as sources to maybe start with and right now I've listed those above. Finally, I've said it before and I'll say it again, each person should know the basic traits of every variety they sow seeds for BEFORE they sow the seeds. And that means plant habit, ind or det, leaf form, PL or RL, fruit color and size and shape. That's the ONLY way that a person will know if the variety they have is correct and it sure would stop a lot of wrong varieties from being traded, which happens quite a bit. Of course the possibility of cross pollination should also be recognized and there's an excellent FAQ on that here at GW, just click on the FAQ at the top of the page and scroll down. Carolyn, who has also decided to stay positive and NOT list the sources she would NOT recommend to others. Sigh....See Moreare there any soap base suppliers in Los Angeles?
Comments (1)John, There must be in a city that size, try the phone book, or a craft supply store for a name of an outlet....See Moresriston
18 years agoitsme
18 years agosriston
18 years agoitsme
18 years agosriston
18 years agomeadowviewvalley
17 years agosweetavenue
15 years ago
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