What is with Fedco?

[littleminnie]

I want to let them know the Mammoth Melting snow peas had a lot of off types that have inedible pods. They no longer have any email address available anywhere. Nice way to run a company.

[Drahkk]

Not sure why it's not on their website, but it is still on their catalog. Email: [e-mail]

MB

[oxbowfarm]

You can email them but I guarantee you that they already know and do not care. Pretty much every edible pod pea I've ever purchased from Fedco has had shell pea contamination in it. Don't get me started on their Sugar Ann. If you email them you may or may not get a response, but I have zero expectation that they will do anything about the problem.

I've always WANTED to like Fedco, but they always lose me with poor seed quality and extremely poor customer service. I do use them for this and that, mostly because you can buy small amounts of things and they usually have one or two items that are very unusual. So they are good for trialing the odd this or that, but I never buy anything from them that I need to depend on.

[littleminnie]

I know right. Their customer service feels like 'you don't like us, go elsewhere; we don't care'. And I really wish you could get everything out of the catalog together not in separate orders.
So who do you order from?

[oxbowfarm]

If I had to make a list starting with my most used seed companies it might look something like this, without pulling out my receipts.

• Osbourne
• Johnny's Selected Seeds
• High Mowing
• Fedco
• Adaptive Seeds
• Seeds of Italy
• Fertile Valley Seed (Carol Deppe)
• Gourmet Seed International
• Sustainable Seed Company
• Baker Creek
• Southern Exposure

Probably those last four or five or so would shift around from year to year because I don't always order from them every year.

[littleminnie]

Checked out Osbourne. Like Johnny's it is mostly hybrids. I don't need hybrids for the easy crops. I guess Fedco trades the customer service in for the lower prices. Hmm I hate that about Walmart!

[oxbowfarm]

I like them because the seed is very high quality, customer service and shipping are excellent and fast, and their prices are unbeatable. Granted, you have to buy much larger quantities. I use them for all my greens seed that I don't grow myself. Also, they have the best selection of chard and spinach varieties I've ever seen. Since chard is my single most profitable crop, I'd use them for that alone.

[oxbowfarm]

I'd say Walmart gives bad customer service because they are a huge company that doesn't care about their employees and is profit driven. Fedco is a tiny worker-owned cooperative that is pretty clearly NOT profit driven. Funny how they both arrive at the same place as far as customer service goes.

[littleminnie]

Yes you are right. That was a bad example. A better example would be my local farm store. I have sworn before I will never go there again due to the bad customer service from the couple who run it. But now I have decided to make it my goal to make them be friendly to me. I got a thank you when I bought eggs Monday.

[deanriowa]

I found their email address at the bottom of the Fedco FAQ page, www.fedcoseeds.com/FAQs.htm, Fedco could do a better job of putting their email address in front of the their customers though.

To bad to hear you have had issues with Fedco Seeds, I myself have always had good luck with their seeds, both in quality and price.

Dean

[zeedman]

This topic brings up a curious point. There seems to be more cases of commercial seed being crossed or mislabeled than I experienced years ago, from a wide range of companies. That may just be an anecdotal observation on my part, or it may be that many seed growers are less cautious - or less experienced - than they once were. Frankly, the level of crossing being reported surprises me, given that there is so much information out there on seed saving... I think gardeners are getting better at saving seed, while some of the pros seem to be getting worse.

Since I prefer pole beans & save most of my own seed, I seldom buy beans. But I was unable to plant in my rural plot until the July 4th weekend, so I figured my pole beans would be iffy due to their DTM, and purchased some bush snap beans ("Tenderette") from the local garden store. That was a good strategy, I've got enough beans frozen to last the winter... but in a 75-foot row, I pulled at least 5 plants that were significantly off type. The crosses were not uniform either, so there were apparently several other parents involved. If the company (which I won't name here) had this much crossing with a normally self-pollinating plant like beans, it makes me wonder about the rest of their offerings.

[homegrower]

Does anyone have any experience with this company? www.everwilde.com/store/Vegetable-seeds.html

[zeedman]

I am not familiar with that company. However, their photo of "Tenderette" does not match the round podded variety that I grew under that name. Scanning photos from a few other vendors, "Tenderette" is indeed round podded, not flat as in their photo... which makes me question their competency.

[paquebot]

The comment about crossed seeds in a Fedco thread is quite possible and/or probable. For the most part, they do not grow their own seeds. They have more or less backyard gardeners doing it in many cases. A much fussed over tomato variety was Black Cherry. A few of us were either fortunate or unfortunate to get seed in advance of the official release. A Fedco grower here in Wisconsin got seeds from me and next year it was available in the Fedco catalog. Thus the route that that variety took through Fedco went through me. That was the good part. Bad part is that there were other companies offering a Black Cherry and often not the same which passed through here.

Probably in the same trade which sent Black Cherry on its way, I got Mr. Fumo from the grower who died a year or so later. Last year, message from Fedco asking for about 300 Mr. Fumo seeds if I could spare them and what I would charge for them. I looked at their catalog and picked out a couple items and the deal was done. There should have been no reason why they would run out entirely if they knew that there were no replacements available. I'm thinking that something went wrong and that they did not have any seed which they could trust to have someone grow out. They knew that if anyone had pure seed, it would have to be me. So, any future Mr. Fumarole will have had a route through here as Mr. Fumo.

Martin

[paquebot]

Duplicate post!?

Martin