Where to Buy Heirloom Seeds for Your Garden

Heirloom seeds are our first choice for planting in our garden. In this post, we’ll go over what heirloom seeds are and the best places to buy them.

What are Heirloom Seeds?

Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been passed down from generation to generation.

To be considered an heirloom, seeds are usually fifty years old or older. Some have even been passed down for hundreds of years.

Heirloom seeds are also open-pollinated. Open-pollination happens by natural means such as wind, insects (especially bees), and birds. The seeds from these plants can be saved and planted year after year, and you can expect exactly what you planted to come up.

Heirloom seeds are not hybrids and they are not genetically modified.

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What are the Benefits of Heirloom Seeds?

There are so many benefits, but here are a few of the reasons we usually choose heirloom seeds for our garden:

Seed Saving

One of the main benefits of heirlooms is that you can save seeds from these plants. Unlike hybrid seeds, when you plant an heirloom, you can expect it to produce true to its type. What you plant is what you can expect when you use heirloom seeds.

If you want to be self-sufficient when it comes to gardening, learning to save seeds is a great idea! And that’s one of the main benefits of choosing to grow heirlooms. You’ll be able to save seeds, year after year. Done correctly, you can even pass seeds down to your children and grandchildren!

Preserving History

Another reason to plant heirloom seeds is to preserve a bit of history. I love the fact that these seeds have stood the test of time.

I also love knowing that my grandmother may have planted these same heirloom vegetable varieties in her victory garden during the Depression.

(This book is the best resource for learning how to save seeds!)

This quote from the book Seed to Seed says it well:

Our grandparents and their ancestors were seed savers by necessity. Their best plants were carefully selected to produce the next year’s seeds, which were traded over the back garden fence with neighbors and faithfully passed down to each new generation of gardeners.

Superior Taste

Heirloom vegetable varieties are often said to have a better, richer flavor than hybrid varieties.

I haven’t compared the flavors myself, but it’s a common opinion of many gardeners. To me, it just makes sense that the more natural food is, the more likely it is to be more flavorful.

Natural Resistance to Disease

According to Seed to Seed, heirloom seed varieties often have a natural resistance to diseases:

Few of these family heirloom varieties have ever been available commercially, until just recently. Many have been grown on the same farm by different generations of a family for 150 years or more. This often resulted in the seeds slowly developing resistances to local diseases and insects, and also gradually becoming well adapted to climates and soil conditions in family gardens throughout the United States.

You can have a natural pharmacy in your backyard! Get your medicinal garden kit here!

Where to Buy Heirloom Seeds

Through the years we’ve purchased our garden seeds from a variety of sources. Here are some of our favorite places to buy heirloom seeds.

True Leaf Market

In 2020, when so many companies were out of stock or not shipping (because of being overwhelmed with orders), we discovered True Leaf Market. They also have some great seed collections!

If you’re new to gardening and you’re not sure which seeds to order, try one of their seed collections.

We have purchased in the past:

Granny’s Garden
Bugout Seed Bag
Culinary Herb Collection

Any of these collections will help you get started with your garden this year!

The Bug Out Seed Bag is an Emergency Seed Assortment of Annuals and Perennials featuring seeds that are:

Non-GMO
Heirloom
Open Pollinated

The Bug Out Seed Bag delivers 34 of the easiest and most prolific fruit and vegetable seeds for emergency preparedness and home gardening. Sealed in a weatherproof mylar bag, each of these 34 heirloom varieties can be safely stored for both emergency and seasonal planting without fear of spoilage.