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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Now the militant organic people will tell me that I am not supporting 
> companies that are in the "seed preservation" or "organic" movement. 

The way I see it is that by doing that you ARE supporting the seed 
preservation and organic movement.  Oh, perhaps not supporting someone's 
grant-mongering 
self serving out to save us all operation (and income), but every plant that 
grows from a saved OP seed is that much of a boost to the organic movement.

My first line of defense is my saved seeds.  Next are the local seed'n'feeds 
and produce stands.  All the produce stands here offer seeds from a seedsman 
not 150 miles from here (Mayo Seeds in Knoxville), very good seed and on the 
order of an ounce of, say, beets or mustard or kale for $1.  Next I check the 
Lowes, Home Despot, and Marts.  I've got several varieties of squash and 
peppers 
I've propogated from those Martha Stewart seeds from KMart and my best line 
of tomatoes are from San Marzano seeds I originally got at WalMart for 10 
cents.  Then lastly I consider mail ordering seeds, and by then it's a short 
and 
inexpensive list of new things I want to try.  Oh, I might add that I also do 
such things as buy bags of dried beans in the Mart and use those for seed.

There are a couple of outfits, Purcell Farms and the Beanpot, that sell 1 lb 
bags of a very large variety of beans intended to be eaten.  They cost about 
half to a third what seedsmen want for them and I've been able to try a wide 
variety of beans by getting those.

I used to buy from Guerney's in the dim and distant past, but now of days the 
local sources stock just about everything they sell.  

And I do think that folks like the Baker's Creek outfit are doing a work in 
collecting and trying some really out of the way OP seeds that we as 
individual 
homesteaders don't have the resources to do.  Sometimes someodd crop fills in 
a niche that we'd otherwise would do without.

A couple more miscellany on this:  The local Mexican 'tiendas' and the 
oriental food market had a wonderful array of different garlics and shallots 
from 
which I've propogated a stash of bulbs.  Also I had wanted to get a stand of 
Bloody Butcher corn and bought some of the expensive seed several times and 
never 
got anything like a crop.  Then I noticed that after Thanksgiving one year, 
the produce stand had three of the deep red ears for sale as a decoration.  
It 
being AFTER thanksgiving I asked how much now.  He gave it to me.  I planted 
that and have had a big crop of it ever since.

Also again, from other fora I have reciprocal agreements with one or two or 
three gardeners from far off that we will send each other a few of our 
favorite 
veggie seeds and if it is a veggie that pleases us, we will raise it each 
year so that if one of us has a crop failure, the others can supply seeds the 
next year.

There are really a lot of resources for seeds.