Recommended sources for plants, seeds, and mushroom spawn, featuring (but not exclusively) suppliers in the Great Lakes bioregion.
Seed & Plant Suppliers
- High Mowing Seed – organic vegetable, flower, and herb seed. A new favorite, after an organic grower in NW Michigan introduced me to them.
- Jelitto Seed – a German perennial seed specialist, primarily serving the wholesale trade. Offers a huge assortment of perennial and herb species, including Gold Nugget seed with improved germination for many difficult species
- JL Hudson, Seedsman – an absolutely wonderful “public access seed bank” carrying a number of unusual species of plants. Their catalog is a fascinating read
- Johnny’s Selected Seeds – offers a range of gardening tools and supplies and a great vegetable, flower, and herb seed offering. Johnny’s has a breeding program and has introduced several All-America Selection winning vegetable varieties.
- Native Seed Search – offers a very unique collection of food plants and relatives, focusing on varieties from the southwestern US and northwestern Mexico.
- Pinetree Garden Seeds – another personal favorite with a great selection of flower and vegetable seed
- Prairie Moon – an Ohio nursery specializing in North American native species.
- Prairie Nursery – a Wisconsin nursery specializing in North American native species.
- Richters – A wonderful Canadian supplier specializing in herbs. Offers both seeds and plants. Offers a number of exclusive herbs to the North Amerian market.
- Seeds of Change – an excellent organic seed offering of vegetables, flowers, and herbs
- Seed Savers Exchange – Though they offer retail sales, SSE is much more than a seed company. It is a fantastic grass-roots organization promoting preservation of heirloom vegetable varieties in home gardens. Its network of seed savers shares a tremendous list of heirloom and open pollinated varieties. Highly recommended.
- Turtle Tree Seed – A New York Biodynamic flower, vegetable, and herb seed supplier. Recommended to me by an organic farmer friend, I plan to try some of their seed in 2013.
- Victory Seeds – A great collection of open pollinated and heirloom seed. Also carrying on Seeds Blüm gardener network.
Woody Plant Nurseries
- Badgersett Research Corporation – a Minnesota-based producer of nut crops, including chestnut, hazlenut, and others.
- Forest Agriculture Enterprises – a woody plant nursery in southwestern Wisconsin featuring very hardy selections of edible trees and shrubs.
- Oikos (pronounced “ekos”) – a great nursery in Kalamazoo, Michigan offering a fantastic assortment of unusual plants, including strains they have developed. Tons of great useful woody plant species and selections.
Mushrooms
- Field & Forest Products – a Wisconsin supplier of spawn of a range of edible and medicinal species. Well-adapted to Midwestern conditions, and a good range of species and strains are available. Highly recommended, their web site has excellent information for new to experienced mushroom cultivators.