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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] seeds HPS etc.
  • Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:50:34 -0500


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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