I learned about the Seeds Savers Exchange website last night, so I decided to check it out. It’s kind of weirdly set up because you can buy seeds from their shop like any other seed catalog, but you can also sign up for the seeds saver exchange where you can buy seeds and plants from other users or provide seeds and plants yourself.
I signed up for the exchange, and whoa boy, there are a lot of seeds and plants available (great for anxiety buying plants), but there are many without pictures and many have very little information about the seeds. That lack of information means it is also very difficult to filter through the offerings if you don’t have a particular variety in mind. If you do have a particular variety in mind, then the search should be good.
For the filters, all you can really go by is plant type, variety, modifiers (plant type specific things, like seedless grapes – but the modifiers are severely limited and you can only choose 1 at a time), and the state the seller is from. So, there’s no way to multi-filter for a grape tomato that is orange, disease resistant, high yielding, with small fruit, but you can just use google to find a variety’s name (maybe Coyote Cherry Tomato?) and then search for it on the seed exchange.
Fruit Tree Exchange
As a permaculturist, I was most interested to see that there were fruit trees, scionwood, rootstock, and vines for sale as well, though it seemed like most of the users were from large operations. Though, it is nice to see that if I ever decide to start selling fruit trees that I could offer them for sale through the Seed Savers Exchange. As far as pricing, it seemed a little cheaper than buying from a small to mid-size grower, and certainly way cheaper than buying from the large growers like Burpee’s or Gurney’s.