Laurie Fen

I've been rummaging for seed sources to see if I can get some landrace breeding going, and ran across a post on Reddit where a lovely person shared a list of seed suppliers with helpful info. I know there is also a grid at the top of this forum, which I found SUPER helpful too, but there is some additional info below. Thought I'd share in case anyone has additional info or thoughts to add!

Below is a copy of the post from Reddit, thanks to r/bellaweather:

[i]So I thought I’d share this is a list I’ve been working on of seed suppliers. I started with who I’ve purchased from in the past and then organized by where are they located (I’m NE zone 6) and started researching- Company history, are they non GMO, are they organic, have they taken the safe seed pledge, and so on.

And this is what I currently have:

NY:

Fruition seeds https://www.fruitionseeds.com/ 7921 Hickory Bottom Road Naples, New York 14512 support@fruitionseeds.com In person sales and events, online sales

Harris seeds https://www.harrisseeds.com/ They have an app Been in business since 1879 355 Paul Rd. P.O. Box 24966 Rochester , NY 14624 Online sales only

Crossmans seeds https://www.crosmanseed.com/ Founded in 1838 Privately owned Online sales and in person sales at office. Each pack is $1.49

Other North East:

Johnny’s https://www.johnnyseeds.com Founded in 1973 Maine Employee owned No gmo seeds

Experimental farm network https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/ Philadelphia-based 501(c)(3) non-profit cooperative committed to social, racial, and economic justice, and dedicated to practicing organic agriculture along agroecological principles.

Hudson valley seeds https://hudsonvalleyseed.com/ 4737 US 209 Accord, NY 12404 845-204-8769
mail@hudsonvalleyseed.com certified organic farm in upstate New York No GMO and they offer art packs with design created by artists paid for the art. The Hudson Valley Seed Company has its roots in the public library of Gardiner, New York. Co-founder Ken Greene, then working as a librarian, had been interested in the local food movement and, realizing there was little discourse about the seeds that grow our food, started the country's first seed library program in 2004.

Ohio Heirloom Seeds https://ohioheirloomseeds.com/ Columbus Ohio

High Mowing Organic Seeds https://www.highmowingseeds.com/ 76 Quarry Road Wolcott, VT 05680

True love seeds https://trueloveseeds.com/ Farm based seed company Philadelphia

Turtle tree seeds https://turtletreeseed.org/ We are a small, non-profit seed company that sells 100% open-pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Every single seed we sell is grown using Demeter certified Biodynamic® and organic practices.  All our seed is non-GMO, non-hybrid, never treated, and grown without the use of chemical inputs. We are part of Camphill Village U.S.A, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.  Camphill Village is an integrated life-sharing community located in Copake, NY.  Of Turtle Tree Seed’s approximately 30 person team – 20 have some sort of developmental difference.  These individuals are involved in every aspect of helping to grow, clean, and pack our seeds.  Our mission also includes encouraging and educating people who want to grow and save open-pollinated vegetable, herb, and flower seeds.

Pine tree garden seeds https://www.superseeds.com/ Maine Founded in 1979 No gmo

Fedco https://www.fedcoseeds.com/ PO Box 520 • Clinton, ME 04927 Co-op founded in 1978

Landreth Seeds / American Meadows https://www.landrethseed.com/ Since 1784 Vermont

Galosh hill seeds https://galushahillseeds.com/ Vermont Heirloom

Richters Herb Seeds https://richters.com/ Canada

Ferry-Morse Seeds https://ferrymorse.com/ 1856 Norton mass.

Ox and Robin https://www.oxandrobin.com/ Massachusetts Heirloom seeds

Burpee https://www.burpee.com/ Founded in 1876 Pennsylvania

Long Island regional seed consortium https://www.lirsc.org/seed-swap Annual seed swap in long island

Other areas:

Seed savers exchange https://www.seedsavers.org/ Missouri, founded in 1975 Heirloom seeds

Hoss Premium Garden Seeds https://hosstools.com/ Georgia (Gardening tools and they sell seeds)

Eden Brothers https://www.edenbrothers.com/ Arden, NC Heirloom, seeds and hard to find types

Sew True Seed https://sowtrueseed.com/ Ashville NC

Southern Exposure seed exchange https://www.southernexposure.com/ Virginia

Territorial Seed https://territorialseed.com/ Oregan

West Coast Seeds https://www.westcoastseeds.com/ British Columbia

Victory Seeds https://victoryseeds.com/ No gmo Open pollinated and heirloom Irving Texas

Marry’s Heirloom Seeds https://www.marysheirloomseeds.com/ Texas

True Leaf Market Seeds https://www.trueleafmarket.com/ Utah

Native seeds.org https://www.nativeseeds.org/ South West

Gurney’s Seeds https://www.gurneys.com/ Indiana

Annies Heirloom Seeds https://www.anniesheirloomseeds.com/ Wisconsin

Jung Seed https://www.jungseed.com/ 1909 Wisconsin

Urban farmer https://www.ufseeds.com/ Indiana

Botanical Interests Seeds https://www.botanicalinterests.com/ Colorado Non gmo

Renee’s Garden Seeds www.reneesgarden.com 6060 Graham Hill Rd. Felton, CA 95018 Non GMO

Other Resources:

Open source seed initiative https://osseeds.org/ Founded 2012 Minnesota Good resource to find open source seeds for specific plants - the list vendors.

I've been on my property (zone 5a, northern catskills) for 2 years. The area is foothills--slopes and very swampy (most things I identify growing wild have "swamp" in their name if that's any indication). Trees growing include silver, red, and sugar maple, white ash, white pine, pitch pine, old apple trees (all are in decline/dying), northern red oak, bitternut hickory.

The maples are all struggling, even though they are about 30+ years old. An arborist came and drilled into a few of them for a stemx treatment last fall, but didn't give a diagnosis. One of the treated trees died over the winter, one silver maple is hanging on but had very tiny leaves this year, and the sugar maples are green but their leaves are shriveled and "crispy."

In the areas around the maples, thickets of gray dogwood are thriving, as well as some ~30ft buckthorn. The buckthorn isn't excessive--just a couple of them--so I could cut them down, but since all the other trees are struggling in the area, and they are the tallest/healthiest things I don't want to take them unless they are the problem. I really need the windbreak and the erosion control (and something sucking up the water during the spring thaw), so I figure something filling that role is better than nothing.

Any ideas on what could be troubling the maples? I see lots of standing/dead wood around this general area, so not sure if it's an overall decline, the gray dogwood or buckthorn is causing the issue, or if the buckthorn is just being opportunistic.

Any ideas or insights appreciated! The areas in question are on the north and west sides of the property and get absolutely pummeled by winter storms so I'm looking for something that will provide wind break and shelter that might compete or work with the common buckthorn.

Thanks!

john lindsey wrote:

Now half of the soil is gone. but it sounds like what I need for this sandy soil.  I wish some one here with knowlage of these grasses would tell me some thing about them.

and where to get bulk seed.
Big blue stem, Sundial, Lupine, Ridged golden rod,

Tall blazing star:



Ridged golden rod:

Just got a bunch from https://www.ernstseed.com/ They have both native and farm crops, so just be sure to read the description of each if you are looking for natives. They only sell by the pound, so wildflowers are pricey, but if you click on the page for the species you want, if it is included in a mix, it will be listed above the price. Just click on "included in mixes" and you can see all the blends they offer that have it.

Prairie Moon also has bulk prices for many species. Depends on how much you need on which will be more cost effective!

Super late to this party but just wanted to add:
I made a dust bath from an old bird bath (filled it with a mix of sand and fireplace ash). Nobody used it, so I threw some bird seed on top to help them find it--the birds now love it as a feeder, digging for seeds and there are tons of sprouts always popping up for them to pick through. Never any sunflowers though--not sure if it's because they eat all the seeds or they just don't sprout!

Ernst seed also makes a basic wildlife seed mix that is basically birdseed (sunflower, buckwheat, millet, etc) but with a good germination rate--it's $1.40 a pound. Just started to plant it, so can't vouch for it yet. They also have a lot of interesting native seed mixes and local ecotypes of seeds, so I grabbed some of their wildlife mixes while getting some natives I wanted. It's a fun site to browse--they only sell by the pound as far as I know, so some of their mixes and wildflowers are eye-wateringly expensive, but there are also good deals (eg, native grass mixes, partridge peas with the mycorrhyzhal innoculant already added, etc.

Shipping is a little pricey, but I found that if you tweak your order so that it fits in a $15 flat rate box you can get. Super happy with speed of delivery, customer service, and quality of everything so far!

Maieshe Ljin wrote:

One rule of mine is if the plant doesn’t get hyper invigorated by the weeding, cutting, digging or pulling, then they are done, their work is coming to an end, and the ecosystem is in a good place and evolving in a direction towards diversity. If they do really jump back, then they haven’t done their work yet and need a little more time.

It has been my experience that when we see them and love them for who they are, the immigrant species come into balance. It takes work but eventually there is a splendor and diversity of thriving life that we are part of and essential to. Each of these plants is here for a reason and that reason likely is us, in both senses of the statement…

Again I don’t want to take away from this thread, as I completely agree with your approach to things!

That's a great point about their work not being done! One of the honeysuckles I cut back "revealed" a lovely 5 foot tall hickory sapling growing in the middle of it. I'm guessing it thrived thanks to the protection from deer offered from the honeysuckle--they don't like the honeysuckle, so it was a living tree cage!

Douglas Campbell wrote:Good advice.
Further, ~15000 y ago the Catskills were under a glacier.
Every species is an 'invasive' on some timescale.
Outside the Congo and Amazon watersheds there are few truly ancient landscapes.

Yes; thank you! Even the invasive earthworms aren't really invasive--they are just arriving fashionably late to the post glacial rebound party!

I was watching some documentaries about other northern hemisphere forests and thinking about how fun it is that so many forests just have *slightly* different versions of our same species--like a video game where different areas are just "reskinned" with different colors of monsters and things, but the structure of the level is still the same. Like Northern Europe vs New England forests just have different "flavors" of squirrels, bears, wolves, turkeys, etc. In some ways it feels like we SHOULD be pulling in "invasives" from these places to help fill ecological niches that we've left bare. I'm obviously not endorsing intentional introduction of species, but when they take hold it can be a fun exercise to reflect on why!

David Nicholls wrote:Sounds like challenging weeds. My main weed is Tradescantia fluminensis, common here in New Zealand introduced from South America as a house plant. It is amazing it does not set seed here but finds its way everywhere seemingly impossible. I see it as a bit of an ally. It doesnt usually grow higher than a few feet, and suppresses almost all other weeds, such as dreaded vines, most of the time, forming a dense carpet or ground cover. So I just plant crops taller than it, it keeps the soil in place until I'm ready to plant something. Most people spend half their lives pulling it and, and loose their topsoil.

Lesves also edible cooked but this is very rarely reported.

Maybe I am lucky I have a weed that can worked around and worked with but maybe this can be done more often witb other weeds than many think. Social constraints are an issue, many people's lives here are devoted to killing this plant, I have a very private section do have not been burnt at the stake by neighbors.

I love that--how are you planting the taller crops? Do you just poke seeds in between, or clear small patches, or just throw a handful of seed and cross your fingers? (I'm crossing my fingers that you can just throw a handful of seeds!)

Isn't it bananas how much of this is tied to social constraints? I have definitely rehearsed in my head what I would say to the neighbors should I get the side eye about my thistle + mullen! It reminds me of teeth whitening--a whole lot of time/cost, counter productive and damaging, but we're all just a bunch of apes!

Jolene Csakany wrote:Thank you for the tips, especially the apps, I have been thinking about getting a plant ID app and wasn't sure which to go with.  

Definitely check out the Seek app! It's made by the same (I think non-profit) as inaturalist, and it's awesome. Just keep trying different angles of the camera until it gets to species, then take a pic. It saves all of your pics/observations so you know when you discover something new, and it identifies animals, insects, and fungi too. It feels like a more fun version of pokemon go--collecting species in real life! And if you really get into it, you can connect it to inaturalist and contribute your observations to citizen science projects!

Jolene Csakany wrote:While every plant may be 'introduced" at some level, as in it didn't evolve in that region thousands or millions of years ago, that doesn't make it invasive.  Even plants that were introduced recently from afar are not necessarily invasive, even ones that naturalize- if they don't displace native plants- and I think much of the unhappiness about invasives has to do with how they aggressively outcompete the plants we use and are challenging to remove, more so than a locavore attitude problem.  

I love this thought--and the idea that they are "introduced" like you would at a party. Just because they're new doesn't mean they can't be a cool and welcome addition to the group. Although some guests can walk the line--they might start out as a good time, and end up a sloppy mess passed out on the lawn.

*knocks on wood to avoid jinxing self*

Just wanted to share some successes and discoveries as I work to remove the multiflora rose, garlic mustard, morrow's honeysuckle, thistles, japanese barberry and oriental bittersweet!

I moved here 2 years ago (5a, northern catskills) and I only started learning what was invasive and troublesome late last year. I am lazy, and I don't want to use any chemicals on the land, but I've seen some great success so far on the invasives, and wanted to share in case its helpful to anyone else!

What you need:
-A pair of gardening gauntlets (long gloves; there are good vegan options available--not as good as leather, but I've been happy with them!)
-Electric pruning shears (I've been using the dewalt one, but there are other ones on amazon that are probably much lighter, and I've heard good things)
-The seek or inaturalist app (both free) to check identifications of plants until you are confident!
-An attitude that you are not going for total scorched earth eradication, just making some space for more natives and diversity! Quit each day while you're still having fun, so you'll look forward to coming back. This was key to making it a fun project!

This is what I've done, and the results so far!

In early spring I waited for the invasives to start leafing out; in my area, they come in before everything else, which makes them easy to identify as they appear! This is also the perfect time because it's cool outside and there are no biting bugs yet! Just put on a thick sweatshirt and gloves and go for a stomp about to see what's around. This is the order of what I tackled in my area, starting in about March/April:

Multiflora Rose: The first to show up in my area: Big arching thorny canes with downward hooked thorns. These catch on EVERYTHING so have your gloves and long sleeves on. Just start cutting small sections and leaving the branches right there on the ground; work your way back bit by bit, until you cut it down to the ground level. I find lots of smaller cuts make it much less thorny, and much less likely that the branches will stick to you when you step back. If you have a big section caught on your clothes, just snip it into a couple of smaller pieces and it will fall off or come off easily--it's the big pieces with those fishhook thorns grabbing from multiple angles that get ya. Don't worry about the roots. Yes they will resprout. But hopefully something else will take over instead; if not, you can cut it back again (it definitely won't be as big). Leave the roots in place to feed the soil/help with erosion. Leave the branches on top in a pile for the same reason, and to create wildlife habitat. It also helps shade out the regrowth that will want to come up from the roots. Results so far: tons of different natives closed in wherever the multiflora rose was. Anything that was growing in the areas have just happily taken back the space, gray dogwoods, cherries, lilacs, grapes, virginia creeper, rose mallow, buttonbush, and goldenrods have filled in naturally very quickly this spring and early summer.

Morrow's Honeysuckle and Hybrids This came next! It leafs out and flowers super early so has been taking over hedgerows and windbreaks. The birds and animals love it, and it is on some steep slopes, so I didn't want to go scorched earth with removal, so I just did the same thing with cutting back and making GIANT brush piles on top of the stumps. Don't worry about being perfect. Just cut down as far as you can go, try to get all the branches with leaves, and leave in a pile. I left all the roots because I don't want to destabilize the soil. I then planted some bare root hazelnuts in front of the stumps on the "sunny side"). I was going to plant some grasses, but raspberries and a bunch of other grasses (some native, some not, came up). I'm leaving them alone for this season to stabilize the slope while the hazelnuts (hopefully!) take root. On the non sloped areas, gray dogwoods, goldenrods, and all of the other usual suspects have happily taken their space. I removed about 50% of it this year, and will plan to get the other half next year--birds were using it this spring, so I didn't want to take it all at once.

Japanese Barberry: Tons of patches of this in wooded areas. At first I was ripping out the roots with a weed wrench, which was fun, but hard work. Then I just started clipping and dropping on top of the leaves/mulch in the woods. This one is the fastest to sprout back, but it sticks out like a sore thumb on the forest floor. I made a second pass just for little new shoots that were sticking up a couple of weeks ago. It's a "fast grower" but in human time it's pretty slow--casually clipping with a cup of coffee in hand a couple of times of year seems to do the job.

Oriental Bittersweet: This stuff is everywhere--but again, once you get to know what it looks like it's easy to spot. Right now it's sticking it's arching vines up from patches of understory, so I just either pull it and leave it where it is if they are young plants (I haven't had an issue with re-rooting so far), or cut back to the ground if it's a big plant. I had HUGE plants strangling trees (where the trunks were bulging because they were being constricted so badly) that I was able to cut down and pull back. I also had messes where it had created huge heaps/nests over other piles of fallen brush and trees, entangling with grapevines and sumac. I just followed the bittersweet as far as I could reach, clipped, and let the grapevines take it from there. It has already gone from 70% bittersweet 30% grape to 90% grape 10% bittersweet! Use those strong competitors to your advantage! With bigger tangles, just cut what you can reach, then come back! It's easier to see what you still need to do once you give the foliage a few days to dry up/die so you can see what you've already cut, and what's still hanging on.

Bull Thistle: I almost took these and the great mullin last fall when I found out they are invasive--I'm glad I didn't! Both of these plants are growing where nothing else is, the birds and bugs love them, and they aren't reproducing quickly. They just quietly reappeared this year, in new spots, and if I'm ever ready to take them down, they are biennial and easy to catch before they flower. But they both look cool and are wildlife magnets--I hypothesize that they are just filling the niche of some of our native thistles that are missing from our ecosystem, so I appreciate they are standing in! I plan to introduce some native thistles when/if I can in the future, but these guys have been surprisingly welcome "invasives"!

Creeping Thistle: I just discovered one of these, but I haven't decided what (if anything) to do about it. For now I'm just watching to see how it behaves, since it's in the middle of a blackberry and milkweed patch, I'm guessing it can't get too crazy too fast (I hope).

Garlic Mustard: I have a few patches of this--one on the steep hillside, and one in a woodsy clearing. For the hillside, I just pulled a lot of the plants (or just the flower heads) before they went to seed this year, and again, wasn't worried about perfection. That seems to have worked well--a few plants still hanging out, but white ash and chokecherry are taking their spots. I was dreading heading to the wood clearing, because it looked overwhelming there this spring, but when I went to look at the patch it was completely covered in White Snakeroot and giant goldenrod instead! I'm thinking garlic mustard forged the way, and now we've moved to bigger plants, so I'm going to try to encourage succession to some new plants in that area and see if we can just shade it out before next spring.

Wanted to share some hope and plant replacement ideas with any other fellow lazy gardeners--non-stop mowing/cutting and chemicals are not your only options! Would love to hear any other success stories of using succession to battle invasives (or embracing the niches that "invasives" are filling for us without our knowledge!)

Nancy Reading wrote:You could also consider 'seed bombs' or 'seed balls' https://permies.com/wiki/112201/pep-foraging/lbs-seed-balls-PEP-BB Coating the seeds with clay is supposed to protect them a bit from nibblers and help them germinate at the right time (after rain) in some climates. It isn't something I've tried, but may be worth a thought too.

I love this idea! I just posted over there to get some info/tips on species and results. I was thinking about seed balls before, but the native gardening reddit thread was super negative about them--saying that they don't work/nothing takes?