[Market-farming] seeds HPS etc.
Road's End Farm
organic87 at frontiernet.net
Fri Jan 2 12:50:34 EST 2009
On Jan 2, 2009, at 11:07 AM, SUE WELLS wrote:
> What about HPS seeds? Any comments about them?
> Sue
> Vermont
>
HPS, Vermont Bean, Shumway, Totally Tomatoes, and somewhat more
recently Jung's, are all the same company, or are all owned by the same
family, or all of them are owned by one of them. Some types of seed
are not carried by all of the companies, and those catalogues refer you
to one of the others; they also don't all carry the same sizes.
The ownership situation is murky. I wrote HPS some years ago and they
wrote back and confirmed the relationship among the first four, but
refused to tell me who the owner was. I have since seen Jung's logo on
some of the other companies' catalogues, and credit card charges from
any of them show up on the bill with a portion of the billers' name
being the same; I've read on Garden Web that Jung bought the rest of
them, but don't know whether that's correct. I have written Jung about
the situation, but got no answer.
As far as reliability goes: I have never ordered from the Shumway
variation, but have occasionally placed small orders to one of the
others, as there are a few varieties I use that are hard to find
elsewhere. (I might order more from them if they weren't so secretive
about who they are, and if Shumway and Jung weren't both still
presenting themselves as being independent family-run companies when it
seems highly unlikely that both of them are -- at least unless a
Shumway married a Jung.) What I have ordered has arrived OK and been as
represented. Most of their seed is untreated, but at least some of the
catalogues may carry some treated seed. Some of the catalogues last
year said that they aren't currently carrying GMO's but may do so in
the future (I haven't read all the fine print in this year's yet); some
of them don't say anything about it; if you need or want non - GMO seed
I would check with them about the particular variety before ordering.
-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale
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