Garden Plot
Money Saving Seed and Plant Catalogs
01/07/11 06:05
Money Saving Seed and Plant Catalogs

Time to clue you in on the money-saving deals that garden catalogs dangle to get you to order early in the season. And on the catalogs that offer really low prices and/or shipping charges allada time!

How about $25 off from Gardens Alive?

Once again, it's Gardens Alive in first place in the "deal division," with a March 2 deadline to get a tasty $25 off an order of $50 -- why that's almost half price!
Ahem.

As always, Gardens Alive is THE source for non-toxic fertilizers and pest controls. And now they offer a full line of seeds and live plants as well-everything from asparagus to zucchini. (Get it? A to Z? Wake up out there, people!) Many of the edibles offered are organically grown, and new this year is a special symbol for the nutrient ratings of different plants. For example: Carrots get a B+; broccoli and cauliflower are A students; and watermelon -- which, let's be honest, is NOT grown for its nutrients levels -- ekes out a C. Request a free catalog at the GardensAlive website or by calling 513-354-1482. To get your $25 off, go to their special website, the $25 will be automatically deducted from your order of $50 or more, or mention the "SAVE 25" code if you order by phone.

Five Bucks off from Burpee-only for youse fine WTOPers!

The week before New Year's, the online arm of the legendary Burpee catalog offered a really short-term money saving incentive, with a deadline of New Year's Eve. I got in touch with them, explained I can't read that fast and so they extended their offer of $5 off an order of $25 or more a little bit-like until June! And with a little elbow twisting, they have invited all of you fine listeners to partake of this deal as well.

Burpee always has lots of wonderful new varieties to crow about every year, but I want to drop back and highly recommend last season's Rookie of the Year in my garden-their beautiful, delicious and insanely colorful "Tye-Dye" hybrid tomato. And it's just one of the stars in their catalog's 150 pages of great plants and seeds. Request a free catalog or order online. You can also call Burpee toll-free at 1-800-888-1447. Use the code "PLOT" (all caps) to claim your $5 off. Bonus: Shipping is FREE with an order of $75 or more; use the code "FSHP" for that one.

Cheap Seed from a Great Source

The wonderfully eclectic, libertarian and overtly subversive "Ethnobotanical Catalog of Seeds" from J. L. Hudson always makes our "money saving seed catalog" list, but NOT for any limited time "dollar off" deals. Instead, J. L. Hudson offers high quality seed at very low prices-typically $2.50 a pack-and impossibly low postage charges, like a $1.50 total shipping for TWENTY packs of seed.

You'll find a nice selection of seeds for flowers and veggies -- pretty much anything you'd want or need, including more than 40 varieties of heirloom tomatoes with names like Black Truffle, Charlie Chaplin, Nebraska Wedding and Red Peach. But their real specialty is offering seed for rare and unusual plants -- seed that's often not available anywhere else. (These are often plants that the books and "experts" say can't be grown from seed. Hudson knows better.) For instance, J. L. Hudson is the only source I know for the beautiful and highly effective "shoo fly plant" I talk about very year. (Look for this banisher and sterilizer of whitefly and houseflies under its Lain name: Nicandra.)

All of the seed they offer is open-pollinated (no hybrid varieties), and buyers are strictly forbidden from using Hudson seed in any attempt to patent a variety or for use in genetic engineering. This company is unique in many, many ways. To obtain a copy of the Most Interesting Seed Catalog on Earth (in glorious black and white), write J. L. Hudson, Seedsman, P. O. Box 337, La Honda, CA 94020; or visit them online. But don't try to call them. They have no phone. Never have. Ya gotta love these guys!

Help preserve the plants your grandparents grew

You won't find any "dollar-off" deals in the beautiful new catalog from the Seed Savers Exchange of Decorah, Iowa. What you'll be saving when you order their seeds and plants is our very history, our agricultural heritage. Until recently a "members only" organization, Seed Savers now offers their thousands of treasured heirloom varieties for sale to the general public. Among the many entries in their 100 page full-color print catalog are a melon so fragrant that women in the Victorian era carried them around to keep nasty street smells at bay ("Queen Anne's Pocket Melon"), a non-bitter eggplant whose ripe fruits look like little green apples ("Applegreen") and "Little blonde girl," a golden cherry tomato first nurtured and saved in the old gardens of East Germany.

Like J. L. Hudson, everything offered (in this case, live plants as well as seeds) is open-pollinated, no hybrid varieties. This means that you can save seeds from the plants you grow out and begin your own family heirloom tradition of treasured plants passed down through generations. Perhaps most importantly, buying from Seed Savers helps fund their mission of preserving and disseminating the seeds of impossible-to-replace heirloom and heritage plants from around the world.

Request a free catalog or order online or call them at 563-382-5990.

"Down at Baker Creek, they got Heirlooms…"

The stunningly beautiful catalog from the heirloom seed company Baker Creek earns a place in our "money saving" seed catalog roundup by virtue of their low prices ($2 to $2.50 a packet) and shipping charges-just three bucks for any size order.

But if even if their prices weren't low, I'd find a way to sneak them in so I could urge you to send for their free print catalog, which is more beautifully photographed and designed than many "fancy" hardcover gardening books. All of the plants are artfully (and sometimes playfully) represented, but for me it's the close to 20 pages of lavishly presented tomatoes that takes center stage -- amazingly diverse heirloom varieties, with names like Green Velvet, Paul Robeson and Missouri Pink Love Apple, they're as fun to say as they are to grow. Everything here is open-pollinated: no hybrids, treated seeds or other high-faluting nonsense-just a new take on classic old varieties.

Request a free catalog or order online or give them a call at 417-924-8917.