Was that post title a little overboard? Sorry about that…I’m a sucker for free, organic, high-quality seeds, and (be honest) most of you, my wonderful readers, are too.
Part Two of our awesome giveaway week is here, and it rocks. (If you missed Part One of giveaway week, there is still time to go enter to win a copy of Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard from the guys of Seattle Urban Farm Company.)
High Mowing Organic Seeds emailed the other day and offered to send some free seeds to one of my readers. Yes, please!
This is High Mowing:
They sell organic vegetable, herb, and flower seeds. Don’t they look friendly, and pretty much exactly how you’d picture organic seed farmers from Vermont to look?
Why Organic Seeds?
All of High Mowing’s seeds are 100% certified organic. You probably grow your vegetables organically and we’ve all heard about the various ways organic food is better for you, the environment, farmers, etc. But you may not have thought about seeking out certified organic seeds.
There are a couple good reasons you might want to buy and use organic seed whenever possible.
1. Plants raised organically over several generations for seed tend make future plants that do better under organic culture. This is straight up adaptation at work. It’s like how heirlooms grown in one area over generations will become more and more adapted to the climate in that area. A plant raised successfully over time without the protection of chemical fungicides, insecticides and whatnot will tend to pass on genetics that make continued organic culture easier. A plant requiring more chemical help to get it to the reproductive finish-line (making seed) in one piece is going to tend to pass on more genetics for plants that do best with that same kind of chemical supplement.
2. Seed crops get hit with a lot of pesticides and fungicides (far more than typical food crops) which is pretty bad for the land and people involved in growing seed crops. In Oregon, for example, most vegetables grown for seed qualify for “nonfood/nonfeed site” status, which diminishes the labeling and pesticide residue test requirements for those crops. Further, since applications of pesticide and fungicide can be applied throughout the growing and seed development stages, minuscule amounts of these chemicals could remain on the seeds you plant in your garden. For someone very diligent about avoiding chemical inputs in their garden, that possibility alone might make the higher cost of organic seeds very worthwhile.
Thankfully, more and more growers are popping up to supply seed to organic home and small market growers, and so a broad range of organic seeds is now available from seedhouses like High Mowing.
So, About Those Free Seeds?
High Mowing Organic Seeds has put together several beautiful Seed Collections filled with up to 10 seed packets and worth up to $27.50, including this Heirloom Vegetable Garden Collection…
…and this Garden Starter Collection.
There are a lot more collections to choose from (Container Garden? Kids Garden?), and High Mowing is giving one of these collections away to one lucky NW Edible reader. The winner of this giveaway can pick the collection of seeds that is most appealing to them. Some kits contain more seed packets and are therefore worth more. Just so you know when you are thinking about which you’d want.
How To Enter
To enter to win this giveaway, leave a comment on this post telling us which one the new 2013 High Mowing seed varieties you’d most like to try out. You can see all their 2013 introductions on one page here. The Iko Iko Pepper and the Prinz Celeriac look great to me.
While you are poking around the High Mowing site, check out the Seed Collections and tell us which one you’ll pick if you win.
Contest details: entries accepted until Thursday December 20th at 6 pm PT. Contest open to residents of the US and Canada due to seed shipping regulations.
Good luck!
Update: Contest now closed. Congratulations to Aibrean, the winner of the seed giveaway. Aibrean, please check your email for details on how to claim your prize!
Black Trifele tomato and Orange Chard…..(surely you didn’t say just pick one..I’m not going to verify, that would be too hard of a decision!)
For the collections – the container garden or the bee garden kits look grand!
Thanks for throwing a big gifting week Erica!
Oh my gosh – that new seeds page is unbelievable! What WOULDN’T I want to try??? The Black Trifele Tomato is beautiful, as are the Red Swan Beans. Both of the corn hybrids sound delicious, and I am always a sucker for tasty new lettuces! Plus the Gabriella Hybrid Onion – I’d need to try that just to see if I could get one as big!
As for the collections, probably the Garden Starter collection would be a good place to start, although the Heirloom Vegetable one looks fabulous as well!
Sounds great! I’d love to try some new seeds to go along with the ones I never got around to planting last year…
I think I’d go with the new “Silver Cloud Cannellini Bean” variety, and pick the “Organic Container Garden Organic Seed Collection” if I got the chance..
Matt Jarvis
Eugene, Oregon
These are my favorites!
http://www.highmowingseeds.com/Organic-Rhazes-Lettuce-Seeds.html
http://www.highmowingseeds.com/Organic-Shishito-Pepper-Seeds.html
I would love some Butterball potatoes. Our CSA grew them this summer and they made the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had! If I won I would pick the salad greens collection. Greens grow best here in my neck of the woods and we can never get enough!
Would love to try those new leeks–I loves me some leeks!
I love heirloom seeds but the do.t always do as well in our one climate. I am hoping to start seeds for the first time this year.
Totally going to try the Black Trifele Tomatoes. That will put my tomato varieties up to 24.
Mmmm…the Black Trifele Tomatoes and Topepo Rosso Peppers look amazing. And the Organic Winter Luxury Pumpkins sound yummy!
Oooh, that Prinz Celeriac looks awesome. I tried celery for the first time this year and would love to try this next year. If I were to win I would love the Heirloom Vegetable Lovers collection.
I’ve heard a lot of great things about High Mowing Seeds–I’d love to give them a try. Two of the new seeds that interest me are the Silver cloud cannelini beans and the
My fair lady sweet corn. Of the seed collections I’m still debating over the heirloom veggies, easy salad greens or winter garden organics. Thank you!
I’d love to try the Red Cipollini Onion
Hi Erica! I would love the heirloom variety pack! Thanks for the opportunity to win free seeds!
Happy Holidays!
Organic Black Trifele Tomato!
From the new 2013 Seed Varities I would choose the Blue Coco Bean. I’ve just started to learn the art of lacto-fermentation and food preservation, and these would look great as a gifted jar of pickled beans!
From the 2013 Seed Collection I would choose the Kitchen Herbs. I started a raised bed garden for just my herbs last year and I need to expand to some medicinal and some for kitchen use!!
Oh – such wonderful choices. I want to try growing onions and garlic from seed but their lettuce and tomato choices look wonderful too. If I had to choose 1 – I’d go for the green tiger tomatoes just because they look like fun.
Oh the Heirloom Vegetable Lovers seeds please….. I love their seed and try to buy some every year – being on a fixed income is hard but it is so much easier and healthier for me when I grow my garden each year and try to freeze, dehydrate, and can what I might need for the year. Thank you for this opportunity. My family and friends thank you – we share ;>)
S-o-o-o-o-o-o hard to pick just one….I’d go with the Silver Cloud Cannellini beans.
Thank you for the giveaway.
~Anne
I would especially love to try two of their new varieties – the Shishito Pepper and the Black Trifele Tomato! They both sound like they’d be good eating!
Since all of my gardening is being done in containers right now, I’d love to win the Container Garden Organic Seed Collection.
Thanks for hosting this awesome seed giveaway!
The Black Trifele Tomato looks great!
There isn’t just one that I could EVER pick! If I win though, I would choose the Three Sisters Collection. Those are the ones I am interested in growing other than Tomatoes 🙂 Good Luck everyone!!
Heirloom vegetable seed collection
Red Cipollini Onion and the Iko Iko Peppers look delish! Oh and that Mirlo Lettuce looks awesome too!
That black trifele tomato is the prettiest thing I’ve seen all day! And I’d love to get their Container Gardening mix, since we don’t have a yard but DO have a nice balcony. (I’m hoping to win the community garden plot lottery this year, but even so will plan to grow some things in containers at home, too).
I’m very interested in the Dario F1 Hybrid Cocozelle Zucchini because they are just so good looking.
The Hierloom collection does seems like a nice mix of seed if I won.
No fair making us choose! 🙂 But if I had to…the iko iko peppers. Or the black trifele tomato. Or the German butterball potato.
I love High Mowing!! I’m really wanting to try the cocozelle zucchini. It’s supposed to be much better tasting than regular zucchini and we love squash here. The Iko Iko peppers look pretty fabulous as well.
I’m dying to try the Shishito peppers. If I were to win I’d love to have the Kid’s Garden seeds to plant with my daughter.
um, all of them? Wait, I don’t have that much room in my garden you say? Huh. Well, in that case…. ::goes to build more beds::
Ahem…. anyway…. If I could only pick one to try, it would be the Winter Luxury Pumpkin. We freeze a lot of pumpkin at my house, and those look/sound delicious. If I could pick a second, the orange chard!
As far as seed collection, I’d want to get my hands on the Container Garden seed collection.
I would like a Kid’s garden collection. We started one last year with some perennial fruits, a gourd trellis and a pole bean teepee, and haven’t yet bought seeds for this year 🙂
Oops. Missed the first part 🙂 I’d love to try the Winter Luxury Pumpkin. I LOVE pie pumpkins and that one’s pretty, too!
In the middle of winter I’m always craving fresh greens! We live in Vermont, so even with our cold frames, we don’t get much out of our garden until March or April. Soo…. I’m looking at that beautiful head of Australe lettuce and thinking of what a beautiful salad it would make.
Thanks!!
German Butterball Potato, Cocozelle Zucchini, Prinz Celeriac, and for my ‘winter indoor garden’, Crunchy Bean Sprout Mix
If I won, I’d love to have the Heirloom Collection!
FREE seeds!?! Last year was my first gardening year using High Mowing Organic seeds and I can tell you I reaped everything I sowed and it was all splendidly delicious! Their Lemon Cukes were a massive hit all over my community so if you haven’t already you HAVE to try them!
I would love to try out their Hybrid Rhonda Beet and Prinz Celeriac because of their versatility, juice, soup, salad oh my! If I won I would certainly choose the container garden package with all those lovely goodies! Second choice would be the kids garden as we were also in love with the Purple Cosmo Carrots from last season and couldn’t get enough!
I ONLY use High Mowing. The corn last year tasted like watermelon, it was so sweet and juicy. My tomatoes were outstanding in flavor and texture. I wouldn’t mind trying my hand at the Red Cipollini onion, or the German Butterball potatoes.
We would love to try the Integro Hybrid Cabbage and the Iko Iko Peppers look yummy too. It’s hard to decide, really. We would love to get ahold of the German butterball potatoes as well. It is tough to choose. The Container Garden Mix looks fantastic too.
I would love to try the Rhazes Lettuce. What a fantastic color, would look great with my plain old greens. The seed collection, I ‘d choose the Starter garden. I didn’t save as many seeds this past year.
I’d go for the cylindra beet, the pirat lettuce and the black seeded Simpson lettuce.
From the collection I’d like the Garden Starter.
Makes me long for Spring already!
If I had to only pick a few I would try Black Trifele Tomato and the Orange Chard. Looks like an amazing salad waiting to happen!
If I won I would probably select the Heirloom Kit.
In love with the Giant Coral Zinnias and the Winter Luxury pumpkins. As far as collections go I can’t decide whether I would pick the Garden Starter (all around good collection), The Three Sisters (because I was planning on doing that next summer anyway), or the Kid’s Garden (because I am a kid at heart!).
Fiero radicchio for me…
i’d like to try some of the new lettuces like Australe Lettuce, and the Des Vertus MarTeau Salad Turnip! greeat giveaway!!!
I’m excited to try out the Iko Iko peppers and the Klondike Blue Ribbon Watermelon! My entire 2012 garden was made up of High Mowing Organic varieties, and I was extremely happy with the results. I also found High Mowing’s YouTube channel to be really helpful in honing my skils this year. Can’t wait for 2013!
Wow the choices! I don’t know if I can pick just one of the new varieties. I like Iko Iko peppers, Black Trifele Tomatoes, German butterball Potatoes, Rhazes & Refugio Lettuce, Blue Coco Bean, and if I had room I would try the winter luxury pumpkin. I will have to go through my existing seeds to see what I can add this year. Of the collections, the Three Sisters appeals to me the most since all of the varieties would be new to my garden. The Heirloom Collection is a close second since I regularly plant several of those.
I would like the Heirloom Lover’s Organic Seed Collection. I like a lot of these sets.
From the requests for the hybrid rarities, it sounds like many of your readers have big gardens with lots of room for extras! I, on the other hand, am limited to containers so I’d love the “Container Mix”. What a great selection of seeds!
MOAR SEEDZ!
I want all of them, please, thank you… OK…I have to pick one?
OK… UM……Green Tiger Tomato
The Fiero F1 Hybrid Radicchio ! This looks like a “healthy” alternative for dip (replacement for potato chips.)
While they all look wonderful, I want the Rhazes lettuce. I love red lettuces, and if all goes well this winter my neighbor’s going to chop down some pesky trees that over-shade my garden, so I’ll get a decent crop!
I’d like to try the Sea Shells Mix Cosmos for the 2013 new varieties and the Garden Starter Organic seed collection. If you ever have a chance come to High Mowing Seeds Trail Gardens event and check out all that they are growing. We always learn so much. The tour of the company is also interesting.
TOMATOES!