Specializing in heirloom, historic and pure seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company is a great place for gardeners who want vegetable, fruit and heirloom flower seeds.

Each category will be ranked 1 (poor) through 5 (excellent) and the catalog, website and overall company will be ranked separately. This article will look at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Catalog Review - Examining the Printed Catalog

Number and Plant Pictures: Rating 4. Over 1200 heirloom plant varieties are listed in 100 pages of this full-color catalog, however not every plant is shown. More heirloom tomatoes are shown in this catalog than most gardeners knew existed! Gardeners will love the true photographs of unique vegetables and heirloom fruits that are shown.

Plant Descriptions and Cultivation Information: Rating 5. Heirloom gardeners will appreciate the cultural and historic information. For example, the Taiwan Black Long Bean description tells how the variety was brought to the US from a Taiwanese immigrant in the 1970's.

Gardening Tips: Rating 5. Lots of gardening tips are included throughout, including information about what varieties are best grown in the Southern and Northern regions.

Prices and Discounts: Rating 5. Very reasonable prices, especially when you consider that many varieties are only available through Baker Creek Seeds and are collected from various countries worldwide.

Plant Packages: Rating 3. Only two pre-planned packages are available, a medium to large garden pack and a jumbo garden pack and are very reasonably priced. Gardeners might wish for more options in getting started but with so many unusual varieties it would be more fun to put together a personalized heirloom vegetable garden.

Organizational Structure: Rating 5. It is very clear for gardeners what types of plants you are looking at in the catalog.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Website Review – A Look at Heirloom Plants Online

Number of Plants and Pictures: Rating 4. While each plant is clearly listed, again, a few heirloom vegetables have no photos.

Plant Descriptions and Cultivation Information: Rating 5. Helpful information is given for many plants including whether those heirloom vegetables do well in humid climates, hot summers, short growing seasons, etc.

Organizational Structure: Rating 5. The Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds website is set up in an easy-to-navigate way that allows gardeners to quickly find the specific vegetables, fruits or heirloom flowers they desire.

Informational Articles and Other Features: Rating 4. Join the heirloom gardening forums to discuss seed saving, genetically modified food, homesteading, and more. Browse the Heirloom Gardener magazine and learn about protecting the food supply from contamination by genetic alteration. However, a beginner vegetable gardener who doesn't know the basics might wish for more “how-to's”.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds Company Review - Details about the Company

Years in Business: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has been in business since 1998.

Number of Plants Total: Just over 1200 varieties are currently offered, originating from 66 different countries with a large variety of American heritage varieties and European historical varieties.

Dave’s Garden Ranking: The Dave's Garden Ranking for Baker Creek Heirloom Seed company is 96/100 and they are a Garden Watchdog Top 30 company.

Number and Prices of Catalogs: One catalog is printed each year and available for free from the Baker Seed Website. The Heirloom Gardener Magazine is published quarterly and features heritage gardening, homesteading, seed saving, etc. for $10 per year.

How many exclusive to the company? About 200 of the rare seed varieties are commercially available from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds only and most are very rare.

Special features or company focus: The main focus of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company is providing non-genetically-modified seeds in a wide number of heirloom and regional plant varieties. While traveling to several countries the founder, Jere Gettle, is always on the lookout for new plant varieties to bring back to America. The general tone of the catalog emphasizes historic preservation, maintaining seed quality and self-sufficiency.